BY 


LORD  DUNS  ANY 


ORD  DUNSANY  has  chosen  as  the  title  for  his  new  flay  the  most  pro- 
vocative word  In  the  English  language — one  which  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling 
has  already  used  with  great  success — IF.    For  a  play  such  as  the  Irish 
gentleman  Is  wont  to  write  no  title  could  be  more  characteristic.    Every- 
thing he  has  ever  done  has  had  a  presupposed  IF 
to  it. 

« — •  IF  one   cannot   lose   oneself   In    phantasy   or»e 
should  not  read  Dunsany. 

IF  one  has  no  poetry  In  one's  heart  one  should 
have  no  traffic  with  a  writer  who  admits  that  he 
traffics  with  the  fairies,  v 

And,  after  his  literary  audience  has  got  Itself 
used  to  expecting  any  possible  IF,  Lord  Dunsany 
gives  'em  IF,  which  is  a  phantasy  after  the  real- 
istic' school.  It  Is,  I  doubt  not,  a  play  which  even 
the  dumbest  of  the  government  clerks  and  bank 
officers  In  London  can  «njoy,  and  which  they  are, 
in  huge  and  applauding  numbers.  It  concerns  the 
IF  of  a  missed  train. 

The  hero,  ten  years  before,  missed  the  8:15  to 
town.  That  missing  rankled  for  years.  Finally, 
with  the  aid  of  a  crystal,  he  was  allowed  to  catch 
his  train  and  live  those  ten  years  as  he  would  have 
lived  them  If  the  door  ofthe  8:16  hadn't  been  banged 
In  his  face. 

It  Is  a  thoroughly  Intriguing  Idea,  living  over  ten  years  as  they  might 
have  been.  They  bring  the  hero  a  wild  adventure,  a  sort  of  super  Prisoner  of 
Zenda-ish  thing,  which,  properly  played,  must  be  as  good  a  melodrama  as  the 
best  of  'em. 

Lord  Dunsany  cannot  write  without  a  touch  of  poetry  In  his  sentences.  IF 
Is  a  whimsy,  charming,  beautifully  written,  which  Is  sheer  romance,  not  only 
because  it  Is  romantic — there  are  many  tales  and  plays  which  are  merely 
that — but  because  It  sets  one  to  thinking  about  the  IF's  in  one's  own  life,  and 
that,  we  must  admit,  is  the  height  of  romantic  Imagining. 


FIFTY' ONE  TALES 


FIFTY- ONE  TALES 


BY 


LORD  DUNSANY 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY 
1919 


Copyright,  1915t 
BY  LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY. 


All  rights  reserved 


i.  J.  PARKKILL  ft  Co.,  BOKOK,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 

PAGBf 

THE  ASSIGNATION  9 

CHARON  11 

THE  DEATH  OF  PAN  14 

THE  SPHINX  AT  GIZEH  16 

THE  HEN  19 

WIND  AND  Foa  22 

THE  RAFT-BUILDERS  24 

THE  WORKMAN  26 

THE  GUEST  28 

DEATH  AND  ODYSSEUS  32 

DEATH  AND  THE  ORANGE  34 

THE  PRAYER  OF  THE  FLOWERS  86 

TIME  AND  THE  TRADESMAN  SS 

THE  LITTLE  CITY  39 

THE  UNPASTURABLE  FIELDS  41 

THE  WORM  AND  THE  ANGEL  43 

THE  SONGLESS  COUNTRY  45 

THE  LATEST  THING  47 


6  CONTENTS 

PAGB 

THE  DEMAGOGUE  AND  THE  DEMI-MONDE  49 

THE  GIANT  POPPY  51 

HOSES  .  53 

THE  MAN  WITH  THE  GOLDEN  EAR-RINGS  55 

THE  DREAM  OF  KING  KARNA-VOOTRA  58 

THE  STORM  62 

A  MISTAKEN  IDENTITY  65 
TRUE  HISTORY  OF  THE  HARE  AND  THE  TORTOISE      66 

ALONE  THE  IMMORTALS  71 

A  MORAL  LITTLE  TALE  75 

THE  RETURN  OF  SONG  79 

SPRING  IN  TOWN  81 

How  THE  ENEMY  CAME  TO  THLUMANA  85 

A  LOSING  GAME  89 

TAKING  UP  PICCADILLY  91 

AFTER  THE  FIRE  93 

THE  CITY  94 

THE  FOOD  OF  DEATH  96 

THE  LONELY  IDOL  97 

THE  SPHINX  IN  THEBES  (MASSACHUSETTS)  100 

THE  REWARD  102 

THE  TROUBLE  IN  LEAFY  GREEN  STREET  105 

THE  MIST  107 

FURROW-MAKER  108 


CONTENTS  7 

PAGH 

LOBSTER  SALAD  112 

THE  RETURN  OP  THE  EXILES  116 

NATURE  AND  TIME  120 

THE  SONG  OF  THE  BLACKBIRD  123 

THE  MESSENGERS  126 

THE  THREE  TALL  SONS  132 

COMPROMISE  13* 

WHAT  WE  HAVE  COME  To  136 

THE  TOMB  OF  PAN  137 


THE  ASSIGNATION 

FAME  singing  in  the  highways,  and  tri- 
fling as  she  sang,  with  sordid  adven- 
turers, passed  the  poet  by. 

And  still  the  poet  made  for  her  little  chap- 
lets  of  song,  to  deck  her  forehead  in  the 
courts  of  Time:  and  still  she  wore  instead 
the  worthless  garlands,  that  boisterous  citi- 
zens flung  to  her  in  the  ways,  made  out  of 
perishable  things. 

And  after  a  while  whenever  these  garlands 
died  the  poet  came  to  her  with  his  chaplets 
of  song;  and  still  she  laughed  at  him  and 
wore  the  worthless  wreaths,  though  they 
always  died  at  evening. 

And  one  day  in  his  bitterness  the  poet 
rebuked  her,  and  said  to  her:  "Lovely 
Fame,  even  in  the  highways  and  the  byways 
you  have  not  forborne  to  laugh  and  shout 

9 


10  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

and  jest  with  worthless  men,  and  I  have 
toiled  for  you  and  dreamed  of  you  and  you 
mock  me  and  pass  me  by." 

And  Fame  turned  her  back  on  him  and 
walked  away,  but  in  departing  she  looked 
over  her  shoulder  and  smiled  at  him  as  she 
had  not  smiled  before,  and,  almost  speaking 
in  a  whisper,  said : 

"I  will  meet  you  in  the  graveyard  at  the 
back  of  the  Workhouse  in  a  hundred 
years." 


CHARON 

leaned  forward  and  rowed. 
All  things  were  one  with  his  wea- 
riness. 

It  was  not  with  him  a  matter  of  years  or 
of  centuries,  but  of  wide  floods  of  time,  and 
an  old  heaviness  and  a  pain  in  the  arms 
that  had  become  for  him  part  of  the  scheme 
that  the  gods  had  made  and  was  of  a  piece 
with  Eternity. 

If  the  gods  had  even  sent  him  a  contrary 
wind  it  would  have  divided  all  time  in  his 
memory  into  two  equal  slabs. 

So  grey  were  all  things  always  where  he 
was  that  if  any  radiance  lingered  a  moment 
among  the  dead,  on  the  face  of  such  a  queen 
perhaps  as  Cleopatra,  his  eyes  could  not 
have  perceived  it. 

It  was  strange  that  the  dead  nowadays 
11 


12  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

were  coming  in  such  numbers.  They  were 
coming  in  thousands  where  they  used  to 
come  in  fifties.  It  was  neither  Charon's 
duty  nor  his  wont  to  ponder  in  his  grey 
soul  why  these  things  might  be.  Charon 
leaned  forward  and  rowed. 

Then  no  one  came  for  a  while.  It  was 
not  usual  for  the  gods  to  send  no  one  down 
from  Earth  for  such  a  space.  But  the  gods 
knew  best. 

Then  one  man  came  alone.  And  the 
little  shade  sat  shivering  on  a  lonely  bench 
and  the  great  boat  pushed  off.  Only  one 
passenger;  the  gods  knew  best.  And  great 
and  weary  Charon  rowed  on  and  on  beside 
the  little,  silent,  shivering  ghost. 

And  the  sound  of  the  river  was  like  a 
mighty  sigh  that  Grief  in  the  beginning  had 
sighed  among  her  sisters,  and  that  could  not 
die  like  the  echoes  of  human  sorrow  failing 
on  earthly  hills,  but  was  as  old  as  time  and 
the  pain  in  Charon's  arms. 

Then  the  boat  from  the  slow,  grey  river 


CHARON  13 

loomed  up  to  the  coast  of  Dis  and  the  little, 
silent  shade  still  shivering  stepped  ashore, 
and  Charon  turned  the  boat  to  go  wearily 
back  to  the  world.  Then  the  little  shadow 
spoke,  that  had  been  a  man. 

"I  am  the  last,"  he  said. 

No  one  had  ever  made  Charon  smile 
before,  no  one  before  had  ever  made  him 
weep. 


THE  DEATH   OF   PAN 

WHEN  the  travellers  from  London  en- 
tered Arcady  they  lamented  one  to 
another  the  death  of  Pan. 

And  anon  they  saw  him  lying  stiff  and 
still. 

Horned  Pan  was  still  and  the  dew  was  on 
his  fur;  he  had  not  the  look  of  a  live  animal. 
And  then  they  said:  "It  is  true  that  Pan 
is  dead." 

And,  standing  melancholy  by  that  huge 
prone  body,  they  looked  for  long  at  memor- 
able Pan. 

And  evening  came  and  a  small  star 
appeared. 

And  presently  from  a  hamlet  of  some 
Arcadian  valley,  with  a  sound  of  idle  song, 
Arcadian  maidens  came. 

And,  when  they  saw  there,  suddenly  in 
14 


THE  DEATH  OF  PAN         15 

the  twilight,  that  old  recumbent  god,  they 
stopped  in  their  running  and  whispered 
among  themselves.  "  How  silly  he  looks," 
they  said,  and  thereat  they  laughed  a  little. 

And  at  the  sound  of  their  laughter  Pan 
leaped  up  and  the  gravel  flew  from  his 
hooves. 

And,  for  as  long  as  the  travellers  stood 
and  listened,  the  crags  and  the  hill-tops  of 
Arcady  rang  with  the  sounds  of  pursuit. 


THE  SPHINX  AT  GIZEH 

IS  AW  the  other  day  the  Sphinx's  painted 
face. 

She  had  painted  her  face  in  order  to  ogle 
Time. 

And  he  has  spared  no  other  painted  face 
in  all  the  world  but  hers. 

Delilah  was  younger  than  she,  and  De- 
lilah is  dust. 

Time  hath  loved  nothing  but  this  worth- 
less painted  face. 

I  do  not  care  that  she  is  ugly,  nor  that 
she  has  painted  her  face,  so  that  she  only 
lure  his  secret  from  Time. 

Time  dallies  like  a  fool  at  her  feet  when 
he  should  be  smiting  cities. 

Time  never  wearies  of  her  silly  smile. 

There  are  temples  all  about  her  that  he 
has  forgotten  to  spoil. 

16 


THE  SPHINX  AT  GIZEH     17 

I  saw  an  old  man  go  by,  and  Time  never 
touched  him. 

Time  that  has  carried  away  the  seven 
gates  of  Thebes ! 

She  has  tried  to  bind  him  with  ropes  of 
eternal  sand,  she  had  hoped  to  oppress  him 
with  the  Pyramids. 

He  lies  there  in  the  sand  with  his  foolish 
hair  all  spread  about  her  paws. 

If  she  ever  finds  his  secret  we  will  put  out 
his  eyes,  so  that  he  shall  find  no  more  our 
beautiful  things — there  are  lovely  gates  in 
Florence  that  I  fear  he  will  carry  away. 

We  have  tried  to  bind  him  with  song  and 
with  old  customs,  but  they  only  held  him 
for  a  little  while,  and  he  has  always  smitten 
us  and  mocked  us. 

When  he  is  blind  he  shall  dance  to  us  and 
make  sport. 

Great  clumsy  Time  shall  stumble  and 
dance,  who  liked  to  kill  little  children,  and 
can  hurt  even  the  daisies  no  longer. 

Then  shall  our  children  laugh  at  him  who 


18  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

slew  Babylon's  winged  bulls,  and  smote 
great  numbers  of  the  gods  and  fairies — 
when  he  is  shorn  of  his  hours  and  his 
years. 

We  will  shut  him  up  in  the  Pyramid  of 
Cheops,  in  the  great  chamber  where  the 
sarcophagus  is.  Thence  we  will  lead  him 
out  when  we  give  our  feasts.  He  shall  ripen 
our  corn  for  us  and  do  menial  wrork. 

We  will  kiss  thy  painted  face,  O  Sphinx, 
if  thou  wilt  betray  to  us  Time. 

And  yet  I  fear  that  in  his  ultimate  an- 
guish he  may  take  hold  blindly  of  the  world 
and  the  moon,  and  slowly  pull  down  upon 
him  the  House  of  Man. 


THE    HEN 

ALL  along  the  farmyard  gables  the  swal- 
lows sat  a-row,  twittering  uneasily  to 
one  another,  telling  of  many  things,  but 
thinking  only  of  Summer  and  the  South,  for 
Autumn  was  afoot  and  the  North  wind 
waiting. 

And  suddenly  one  day  they  were  all  quite 
gone.  And  everyone  spoke  of  the  swallows 
and  the  South. 

"I  think  I  shall  go  South  myself  next 
year,"  said  a  hen. 

And  the  year  wore  on  and  the  swallows 
came  again,  and  the  year  wore  on  and  they 
sat  again  on  the  gables,  and  all  the  poultry 
discussed  the  departure  of  the  hen. 

And  very  early  one  morning,  the  wind 
being  from  the  North,  the  swallows  all 
soared  suddenly  and  felt  the  wind  in  their 

19 


20  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

wings ;  and  a  strength  came  upon  them  and 
a  strange  old  knowledge  and  a  more  than 
human  faith,  and  flying  high  they  left  the 
smoke  of  our  cities  and  small  remembered 
eaves,  and  saw  at  last  the  huge  and  home- 
less sea,  and  steering  by  grey  sea-currents 
went  southward  with  the  wind.  And  going 
South  they  went  by  glittering  fog-banks 
and  saw  old  islands  lifting  their  heads 
above  them;  they  saw  the  slow  quests  of  the 
wandering  ships,  and  divers  seeking  pearls, 
and  lands  at  war,  till  there  came  in  view  the 
mountains  that  they  sought  and  the  sight 
of  the  peaks  they  knew ;  and  they  descended 
into  an  austral  valley,  and  saw  Summer 
sometimes  sleeping  and  sometimes  singing 
song. 

"I  think  the  wind  is  about  right,"  said 
the  hen;  and  she  spread  her  wings  and  ran 
out  of  the  poultry -yard.  And  she  ran  flut- 
tering out  on  to  the  road  and  some  way  down 
it  until  she  came  to  a  garden. 

At  evening  she  came  back  panting. 


THE  HEN  21 

And  in  the  poultry-yard  she  told  the 
poultry  how  she  had  gone  South  as  far  as 
the  high  road,  and  saw  the  great  world's 
traffic  going  by,  and  came  to  lands  where 
the  potato  grew,  and  saw  the  stubble  upon 
which  men  live,  and  at  the  end  of  the  road 
had  found  a  garden,  and  there  were  roses  in 
it — beautiful  roses ! — and  the  gardener  him- 
self was  there  with  his  braces  on. 

"How  extremely  interesting,"  the  poultry 
said,  "and  what  a  really  beautiful  descrip- 
tion!" 

And  the  Winter  wore  away,  and  the  bitter 
months  went  by,  and  the  Spring  of  the  year 
appeared,  and  the  swallows  came  again. 

"We  have  been  to  the  South,"  they  said, 
"and  the  valleys  beyond  the  sea." 

But  the  poultry  would  not  agree  that 
there  was  a  sea  in  the  South:  "You  should 
hear  our  hen,"  they  said. 


WIND  AND  FOG 

WAY  for  us,"  said  the  North  Wind  as 
he  came  down  the  sea  on  an  errand 
of  old  Winter. 

And  he  saw  before  him  the  grey  silent 
fog  that  lay  along  the  tides. 

"Way  for  us,"  said  the  North  Wind,  "O 
ineffectual  fog,  for  I  am  Winter's  leader  in 
his  age-old  war  with  the  ships.  I  overwhelm 
them  suddenly  in  my  strength,  or  drive  upon 
them  the  huge  seafaring  bergs.  I  cross  an 
ocean  while  you  move  a  mile.  There  is 
mourning  in  inland  places  when  I  have  met 
the  ships.  I  drive  them  upon  the  rocks  and 
feed  the  sea.  Wherever  I  appear  they  bow 
to  our  lord  the  Winter." 

And  to  his  arrogant  boasting  nothing 
said  the  fog.  Only  he  rose  up  slowly  and 
trailed  away  from  the  sea  and,  crawling  up 

22 


WIND  AND  FOG  23 

long  valleys,  took  refuge  among  the  hills; 
and  night  came  down  and  everything  was 
still,  and  the  fog  began  to  mumble  in  the 
stillness.  And  I  heard  him  telling  in- 
famously to  himself  the  tale  of  his  horrible 
spoils.  "A  hundred  and  fifteen  galleons  of 
old  Spain,  a  certain  argosy  that  went  from 
Tyre,  eight  fisher-fleets  and  ninety  ships  of 
the  line,  twelve  warships  under  sail,  with 
their  carronades,  three  hundred  and  eighty- 
seven  river-craft,  forty-two  merchantmen 
that  carried  spice,  four  quinquiremes,  ten 
triremes,  thirty  yachts,  twenty-one  battle- 
ships of  the  modern  time,  nine  thousand  ad- 
mirals .  .  . "  he  mumbled  and  chuckled  on, 
till  I  suddenly  rose  and  fled  from  his  fearful 
contamination. 


THE   RAFT-BUILDERS 

ALL  we  who  write  put  me  in  mind  of 
sailors  hastily  making  rafts  upon 
doomed  ships. 

When  we  break  up  under  the  heavy  years 
and  go  down  into  eternity  with  all  that  is 
ours  our  thoughts  like  small  lost  rafts  float 
on  awhile  upon  Oblivion's  sea.  They  will 
not  carry  much  over  those  tides,  our  names 
and  a  phrase  or  two  and  little  else. 

They  that  write  as  a  trade  to  please  the 
whim  of  the  day,  they  are  like  sailors  that 
work  at  the  rafts  only  to  warm  their  hands 
and  to  distract  their  thoughts  from  their 
certain  doom;  their  rafts  go  all  to  pieces 
before  the  ship  breaks  up. 

See  now  Oblivion  shimmering  all  around 
us,  its  very  tranquillity  deadlier  than  tem- 
pest. How  little  all  our  keels  have  troubled 

24 


THE  RAFT-BUILDERS        25 

it.  Time  in  its  deeps  swims  like  a  monstrous 
whale ;  and,  like  a  whale,  feeds  on  the  littlest 
things — small  tunes  and  little  unskilled 
songs  of  the  olden,  golden  evenings — and 
anon  turneth  whale-like  to  overthrow  whole 
ships. 

See  now  the  wreckage  of  Bahylon  float- 
ing idly,  and  something  there  that  once  was 
Nineveh;  already  their  kings  and  queens 
are  in  the  deeps  among  the  weedy  masses 
of  old  centuries  that  hide  the  sodden  hulk 
of  sunken  Tyre  and  make  a  darkness  round 
Persepolis. 

For  the  rest  I  dimly  see  the  forms  of 
foundered  ships  on  the  sea-floor  strewn  with 
crowns. 

Our  ships  were  all  unseaworthy  from  the 
first. 

There  goes  the  raft  that  Homer  made  for 
Helen. 


THE  WORKMAN 

I  SAW  a  workman  fall  with  his  scaffold- 
ing right  from  the  summit  of  some  vast 
hotel.  And  as  he  came  down  I  saw  him 
holding  a  knife  and  trying  to  cut  his  name 
on  the  scaffolding.  He  had  time  to  try 
and  do  this  for  he  must  have  had  nearly 
three  hundred  feet  to  fall.  And  I  could 
think  of  nothing  but  his  folly  in  doing  this 
futile  thing,  for  not  only  would  the  man 
be  unrecognizably  dead  in  three  seconds,  but 
the  very  pole  on  which  he  tried  to  scratch 
whatever  of  his  name  he  had  time  for  was 
certain  to  be  burnt  in  a  few  weeks  for  fire- 
wood. 

Then  I  went  home  for  I  had  work  to  do. 
And  all  that  evening  I  thought  of  the  man's 
folly,  till  the  thought  hindered  me  from 
serious  work. 

26 


THE  WORKMAN  27 

And  late  that  night  while  I  was  still  at 
work,  the  ghost  of  the  workman  floated 
through  my  wall  and  stood  before  me 
laughing. 

I  heard  no  sound  until  after  I  spoke  to 
it;  but  I  could  see  the  grey  diaphanous 
form  standing  before  me  shuddering  with 
laughter. 

I  spoke  at  last  and  asked  what  it  was 
laughing  at,  and  then  the  ghost  spoke.  It 
said:  "I'm  a-laughin'  at  you  sittin'  and 
workin'  there." 

"And  why,"  I  said,  "do  you  laugh  at 
serious  work?" 

"Why,  yer  bloomin'  life  'ull  go  by  like  a 
wind,"  he  said,  "and  yer  'ole  silly  civilization 
'ull  be  tidied  up  in  a  few  centuries." 

Then  he  fell  to  laughing  again  and  this 
time  audibly ;  and,  laughing  still,  faded  back 
through  the  wall  again  and  into  the  eternity 
from  which  he  had  come. 


THE   GUEST 

A  YOUNG  man  came  into  an  ornate 
restaurant  at  eight  o'clock  in 
London. 

He  was  alone,  but  two  places  had  been 
laid  at  the  table  which  was  reserved  for  him. 
He  had  chosen  the  dinner  very  carefully,  by 
letter  a  week  before. 

A  waiter  asked  him  about  the  other  guest. 

"You  probably  won't  see  him  till  the  cof- 
fee comes,"  the  young  man  told  him;  so  he 
was  served  alone. 

Those  at  adjacent  tables  might  have  no- 
ticed the  young  man  continually  addressing 
the  empty  chair  and  carrying  on  a  mono- 
logue with  it  throughout  his  elaborate  dinner. 

"I  think  you  knew  my  father,"  he  said 
to  it  over  the  soup. 

"I  sent  for  you  this  evening,"  he  contin- 
28 


THE  GUEST  29 

ued,  "because  I  want  you  to  do  me  a  good 
turn;  in  fact  I  must  insist  on  it." 

There  was  nothing  eccentric  about  the 
man  except  for  this  habit  of  addressing  an 
empty  chair,  certainly  he  was  eating  as  good 
a  dinner  as  any  sane  man  could  wish  for. 

After  the  Burgundy  had  been  served  he 
became  more  voluble  in  his  monologue,  not 
that  he  spoiled  his  wine  by  drinking  exces- 
sively. 

"We  have  several  acquaintances  in  com- 
mon," he  said.  "I  met  King  Seti  a  year 
ago  in  Thebes.  I  should  think  he  has  altered 
very  little  since  you  knew  him.  I  thought 
his  forehead  a  little  low  for  a  king's. 
Cheops  has  left  the  house  that  he  built  for 
your  reception,  he  must  have  prepared  for 
you  for  years  and  years.  I  suppose  you  have 
seldom  been  entertained  like  that.  I  ordered 
this  dinner  over  a  week  ago.  I  thought  then 
that  a  lady  might  have  come  with  me,  but  as 
she  wouldn't  I've  asked  you.  She  may  not 
after  all  be  as  lovely  as  Helen  of  Troy.  Was 


30  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

Helen  very  lovely?  Not  when  you  knew 
her,  perhaps.  You  were  lucky  in  Cleopatra, 
you  must  have  known  her  when  she  was  in 
her  prime. 

"You  never  knew  the  mermaids  nor  the 
fairies  nor  the  lovely  goddesses  of  long  ago, 
that's  where  we  have  the  best  of  you." 

He  was  silent  when  the  waiters  came  to 
his  table,  but  rambled  merrily  on  as  soon 
as  they  left,  still  turned  to  the  empty  chair. 

"You  know  I  saw  you  here  in  London 
only  the  other  day.  You  were  on  a  motor 
bus  going  down  Ludgate  Hill.  It  was  go- 
ing much  too  fast.  London  is  a  good  place. 
But  I  shall  be  glad  enough  to  leave  it.  It 
was  in  London  I  met  the  lady  that  I  was 
speaking  about.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  Lon- 
don I  probably  shouldn't  have  met  her,  and 
if  it  hadn't  been  for  London  she  probably 
wouldn't  have  had  so  much  besides  me  to 
amuse  her.  It  cuts  both  ways." 

He  paused  once  to  order  coffee,  gazing 
earnestly  at  the  waiter  and  putting  a  sove- 


THE  GUEST  31 

reign  into  his  hand.  "Don't  let  it  be 
chicory,"  said  he. 

The  waiter  brought  the  coffee,  and  the 
young  man  dropped  a  tabloid  of  some  sort 
into  his  cup. 

"I  don't  suppose  you  come  here  very 
often,"  he  went  on.  "Well,  you  probably 
want  to  be  going.  I  haven't  taken  you  much 
out  of  your  way,  there  is  plenty  for  you  to 
do  in  London." 

Then  having  drunk  his  coffee  he  fell  on 
to  the  floor  by  a  foot  of  the  empty  chair, 
and  a  doctor  who  was  dining  in  the  room 
bent  over  him  and  announced  to  the  anxious 
manager  the  visible  presence  of  the  young 
man's  guest. 


DEATH  AND  ODYSSEUS 

IN  the  Olympian  courts  Love  laughed  at 
Death,  because  he  was  unsightly,  and 
because  She  couldn't  help  it,  and  because  he 
never  did  anything  worth  doing,  and  be- 
cause She  would. 

And  Death  hated  being  laughed  at,  and 
used  to  brood  apart  thinking  only  of  his 
wrongs  and  of  what  he  could  do  to  end  this 
intolerable  treatment. 

But  one  day  Death  appeared  in  the  courts 
with  an  air  and  They  all  noticed  it.  "What 
are  you  up  to  now?"  said  Love.  And 
Death  with  some  solemnity  said  to  Her: 
"I  am  going  to  frighten  Odysseus";  and 
drawing  about  him  his  grey  traveller's  cloak 
went  out  through  the  windy  door  with  his 
jowl  turned  earthwards. 

And  he  came  soon  to  Ithaca  and  the  hall 
32 


DEATH  AND  ODYSSEUS      33 

that  Athene  knew,  and  opened  the  door  and 
saw  there  famous  Odysseus,  with  his  white 
locks  bending  close  over  the  fire,  trying  to 
warm  his  hands. 

And  the  wind  through  the  open  door 
blew  bitterly  on  Odysseus. 

And  Death  came  up  behind  him,  and 
suddenly  shouted. 

And  Odysseus  went  on  wanning  his  pale 
hands. 

Then  Death  came  close  and  began  to 
mouth  at  him.  And  after  a  while  Odysseus 
turned  and  spoke.  And  "Well,  old  ser- 
vant," he  said,  "have  your  masters  been 
kind  to  you  since  I  made  you  work  for  me 
round  Ilion?" 

And  Death  for  some  while  stood  mute, 
for  he  thought  of  the  laughter  of  Love. 

Then  "Come  now,"  said  Odysseus,  "lend 
me  your  shoulder,"  and  he  leaning  heavily 
on  that  bony  joint,  they  went  together 
through  the  open  door. 


DEATH  AND  THE  ORANGE 

TWO  dark  young  men  in  a  foreign 
southern  land  sat  at  a  restaurant 
table  with  one  woman. 

And  on  the  woman's  plate  was  a  small 
orange  which  had  an  evil  laughter  in  its 
heart. 

And  both  of  the  men  would  be  looking 
at  the  woman  all  the  time,  and  they  ate  little 
and  they  drank  much. 

And  the  woman  was  smiling  equally  at 
each. 

Then  the  small  orange  that  had  the 
laughter  in  its  heart  rolled  slowly  off  the 
plate  on  to  the  floor.  And  the  dark  young 
men  both  sought  for  it  at  once,  and  they 
met  suddenly  beneath  the  table,  and  soon 
they  were  speaking  swift  words  to  one  an- 
other, and  a  horror  and  an  impotence  came 
34 


DEATH  AND  THE  ORANGE     35 

over  the  Reason  of  each  as  she  sat  helpless 
at  the  back  of  the  mind,  and  the  heart  of  the 
orange  laughed  and  the  woman  went  on 
smiling;  and  Death,  who  was  sitting  at  an- 
other table,  tete-a-tete  with  an  old  man,  rose 
and  came  over  to  listen  to  the  quarrel. 


THE  PRAYER  OF  THE 
FLOWERS 

IT  was  the  voice  of  the  flowers  on  the  West 
wind,  the  lovable,  the  old,  the  lazy  West 
wind,  blowing  ceaselessly,  blowing  sleepily, 
going  Greecewards. 

"The  woods  have  gone  away,  they  have 
fallen  and  left  us;  men  love  us  no  longer, 
we  are  lonely  by  moonlight.  Great  engines 
rush  over  the  beautiful  fields,  their  ways  lie 
hard  and  terrible  up  and  down  the  land. 

"The  cancrous  cities  spread  over  the 
grass,  they  clatter  in  their  lairs  continually, 
they  glitter  about  us  blemishing  the  night. 

"The  woods  are  gone,  O  Pan,  the  woods, 
the  woods.  And  thou  art  far,  O  Pan,  and 
far  away." 

I  was  standing  by  night  between  two 
railway  embankments  on  the  edge  of  a  Mid- 
36 


PRAYER  OF  THE  FLOWERS    37 

land  city.  On  one  of  them  I  saw  the  trains 
go  by,  once  in  every  two  minutes,  and  on 
the  other,  the  trains  went  by  twice  in  every 
five. 

Quite  close  were  the  glaring  factories,  and 
the  sky  above  them  wore  the  fearful  look 
that  it  wears  in  dreams  of  fever. 

The  flowers  were  right  in  the  stride  of 
that  advancing  city,  and  thence  I  heard 
them  sending  up  their  cry.  And  then  I 
heard,  beating  musically  up  wind,  the  voice 
of  Pan  reproving  them  from  Arcady — "Be 
patient  a  little,  these  things  are  not  for 
long." 


TIME  AND  THE  TRADESMAN 

ONCE  Time  as  he  prowled  the  world,  his 
hair  grey  not  with  weakness  but  with 
dust  of  the  ruin  of  cities,  came  to  a  furniture 
shop  and  entered  the  Antique  department. 
And  there  he  saw  a  man  darkening  the  wood 
of  a  chair  with  dye  and  beating  it  with  chains 
and  making  imitation  worm-holes  in  it. 

And  when  Time  saw  another  doing  his 
work  he  stood  by  him  awhile  and  looked  on 
critically. 

And  at  last  he  said:  "That  is  not  how 
I  work,"  and  he  turned  the  man's  hair  white 
and  bent  his  back  and  put  some  furrows  in 
his  little  cunning  face;  then  turned  and 
strode  away,  for  a  mighty  city  that  was 
weary  and  sick  and  too  long  had  troubled 
the  fields  was  sore  in  need  of  him. 


38 


THE  LITTLE   CITY 

I  WAS  in  the  pre-destined  11.8  from 
Goraghwood  to  Drogheda,  when  I 
suddenly  saw  the  city.  It  was  a  little  city  in 
a  valley,  and  only  seemed  to  have  a  little 
smoke,  and  the  sun  caught  the  smoke  and 
turned  it  golden,  so  that  it  looked  like  an 
old  Italian  picture  where  angels  walk  in  the 
foreground  and  the  rest  is  a  blaze  of  gold. 
And  beyond,  as  one  could  tell  by  the  lie  of 
land  although  one  could  not  see  through  the 
golden  smoke,  I  knew  that  there  lay  the 
paths  of  the  roving  ships. 

All  round  there  lay  a  patchwork  of  small 
fields  all  over  the  slopes  of  the  hills,  and 
the  snow  had  come  upon  them  tentatively, 
but  already  the  birds  of  the  waste  had  moved 
to  the  sheltered  places  for  every  omen  boded 
more  to  fall.  Far  away  some  little  hills 

39 


40  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

blazed  like  an  aureate  bulwark  broken  off 
by  age  and  fallen  from  the  earthward 
rampart  of  Paradise.  And  aloof  and  dark 
the  mountains  stared  unconcernedly  sea- 
wards. 

And  when  I  saw  those  grey  and  watchful 
mountains  sitting  where  they  sat  while  the 
cities  of  the  civilization  of  Araby  and  Asia 
arose  like  crocuses,  and  like  crocuses  fell,  I 
wondered  for  how  long  there  would  be 
smoke  in  the  valley  and  little  fields  on  the 
hills. 


THE  UNPASTURABLE  FIELDS 

THUS  spake  the  mountains:  "Behold 
us,  even  us ;  the  old  ones,  the  grey  ones, 
that  wear  the  feet  of  Time.  Time  on  our 
rocks  shall  break  his  staff  and  stumble:  and 
still  we  shall  sit  majestic,  even  as  now,  hear- 
ing the  sound  of  the  sea,  our  old  coeval  sister, 
who  nurses  the  bones  of  her  children  and 
weeps  for  the  things  she  has  done. 

"Far,  far,  we  stand  above  all  things;  be- 
friending the  little  cities  until  they  grow 
old  and  leave  us  to  go  among  the  myths. 

"We  are  the  most  imperishable  moun- 
tains." 

And  softly  the  clouds  foregathered  from 
far  places,  and  crag  on  crag  and  mountain 
upon  mountain  in  the  likeness  of  Caucasus 
upon  Himalaya  came  riding  past  the  sun- 
light upon  the  backs  of  storms  and  looked 

41 


42  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

down  idly  from  their  golden  heights  upon 
the  crests  of  the  mountains. 

"Ye  pass  away,"  said  the  mountains. 

And  the  clouds  answered,  as  I  dreamed 
or  fancied, 

"We  pass  away,  indeed  we  pass  away, 
but  upon  our  unpasturable  fields  Pegasus 
prances.  Here  Pegasus  gallops  and  browses 
upon  song  which  the  larks  bring  to  him 
every  morning  from  far  terrestrial  fields. 
His  hoof-beats  ring  upon  our  slopes  at  sun- 
rise as  though  our  fields  were  of  silver. 
And  breathing  the  dawn-wind  in  dilated  nos- 
trils, with  head  tossed  upwards  and  with 
quivering  wings,  he  stands  and  stares  from 
our  tremendous  heights,  and  snorts  and  sees 
far-future  wonderful  wars  rage  in  the 
creases  and  the  folds  of  the  togas  that  cover 
the  knees  of  the  gods." 


THE    WORM    AND    THE    ANGEL 

AS  he  crawled  from  the  tombs  of  the 
fallen  a  worm  met  with  an  angel. 

And  together  they  looked  upon  the  kings 
and  kingdoms,  and  youths  and  maidens  and 
the  cities  of  men.  They  saw  the  old  men 
heavy  in  their  chairs  and  heard  the  children 
singing  in  the  fields.  They  saw  far  wars  and 
warriors  and  walled  towns,  wisdom  and 
wickedness,  and  the  pomp  of  kings,  and  the 
people  of  all  the  lands  that  the  sunlight 
knew. 

And  the  worm  spake  to  the  angel  saying: 
"Behold  my  food." 

Trapa     &iva    iroXv^Xourftouo 


murmured  the  angel,  for  they  walked  by  the 
sea,  "and  can  you  destroy  that  too?" 
And  the  worm  paled  in  his  anger  to  a 
43 


44  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

greyness  ill  to  behold,  for  for  three  thousand 
years  he  had  tried  to  destroy  that  line  and 
still  its  melody  was  ringing  in  his  head. 


THE    SONGLESS    COUNTRY 

THE  poet  came  unto  a  great  country  in 
which  there  were  no  songs.  And  he 
lamented  gently  for  the  nation  that  had  not 
any  little  foolish  songs  to  sing  to  itself  at 
evening. 

And  at  last  he  said:  "I  will  make  for 
them  myself  some  little  foolish  songs  so 
that  they  may  be  merry  in  the  lanes  and 
happy  by  the  fireside."  And  for  some  days 
he  made  for  them  aimless  songs  such  as 
maidens  sing  on  the  hills  in  the  older 
happier  countries. 

Then  he  went  to  some  of  that  nation  as 
they  sat  weary  with  the  work  of  the  day 
and  said  to  them:  "I  have  made  you  some 
aimless  songs  out  of  the  small  unreasonable 
legends,  that  are  somewhat  akin  to  the  wind 
in  the  vales  of  my  childhood ;  and  you  may 

45 


46  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

care  to  sing  them  in  your  disconsolate 
evenings." 

And  they  said  to  him: 

"If  you  think  we  have  time  for  that  kind 
of  nonsense  nowadays  you  cannot  know 
much  of  the  progress  of  modern  com- 
merce." 

And  then  the  poet  wept  for  he  said: 
"Alas !  They  are  damned." 


THE  LATEST  THING 

I  SAW  an  unclean-feeder  by  the  banks 
of  the  river  of  Time.  He  crouched  by 
orchards  numerous  with  apples  in  a  happy 
land  of  flowers;  colossal  barns  stood  near 
which  the  ancients  had  stored  with  grain,  and 
the  sun  was  golden  on  serene  far  hills  behind 
the  level  lands.  But  his  back  was  to  all 
these  things.  He  crouched  and  watched  the 
river.  And  whatever  the  river  chanced  to 
send  him  down  the  unclean- feeder  clutched 
at  greedily  with  his  arms,  wading  out  into 
the  water. 

Now  there  were  in  those  days,  and  indeed 
still  are,  certain  uncleanly  cities  upon  the 
river  of  Time;  and  from  them  fearfully 
nameless  things  came  floating  shapelessly 
by.  And  whenever  the  odor  of  these  came 
down  the  river  before  them  the  unclean- 

47 


48  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

feeder  plunged  into  the  dirty  water  and 
stood  far  out,  expectant.  And  if  he  opened 
his  mouth  one  saw  these  things  on  his  lips. 

Indeed  from  the  upper  reaches  there  came 
down  sometimes  the  fallen  rhododendron's 
petal,  sometimes  a  rose;  but  they  were  use- 
less to  the  unclean- feeder,  and  when  he  saw 
them  he  growled. 

A  poet  walked  beside  the  river's  bank; 
his  head  was  lifted  and  his  look  was  afar; 
I  think  he  saw  the  sea,  and  the  hills  of  Fate 
from  which  the  river  ran.  I  saw  the  unclean- 
feeder  standing  voracious,  up  to  his  waist 
in  that  evil-smelling  river. 

"Look,"  I  said  to  the  poet. 

"The  current  will  sweep  him  away,"  the 
poet  said. 

"But  those  cities  that  poison  the  river," 
I  said  to  him. 

He  answered:  "Whenever  the  centuries 
melt  on  the  hills  of  Fate  the  river  terribly 
floods." 


THE  DEMAGOGUE  AND  THE 
DEMI-MONDE 

A  DEMAGOGUE  and  a  demi-mon- 
daine  chanced  to  arrive  together  at 
the  gate  of  Paradice.  And  the  Saint  looked 
sorrowfully  at  them  both. 

"Why  were  you  a  demagogue?"  he  said 
to  the  first. 

"Because,"  said  the  demagogue,  "I  stood 
for  those  principles  that  have  made  us  what 
we  are  and  have  endeared  our  Party  to  the 
great  heart  of  the  people.  In  a  word  I 
stood  unflinchingly  on  the  plank  of  popular 
representation. ' ' 

"And  you?"  said  the  Saint  to  her  of  the 
demi-monde. 

"I  wanted  money,"  said  the  demi-mon- 
daine. 

And  after  some  moments'  thought  the 
49 


50  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

Saint  said:  "Well,  come  in;  though  you 
don't  deserve  to." 

But  to  the  demagogue  he  said:  "We 
genuinely  regret  that  the  limited  space  at 
our  disposal  and  our  unfortunate  lack  of 
interest  in  those  Questions  that  you  have 
gone  so  far  to  inculcate  and  have  so  ably 
upheld  in  the  past,  prevent  us  from  giving 
you  the  support  for  which  you  seek." 

And  he  shut  the  golden  door. 


THE  GIANT  POPPY 

I  DREAMT  that  I  went  back  to  the  hills 
I  knew,  whence  on  a  clear  day  you  can 
see  the  walls  of  Ilion  and  the  plains  of  Ron- 
cesvalles.  There  used  to  be  woods  along  the 
tops  of  those  hills  with  clearings  in  them 
where  the  moonlight  fell,  and  there  when 
no  one  watched  the  fairies  danced. 

But  there  were  no  woods  when  I  went 
back,  no  fairies  nor  distant  glimpse  of  Ilion 
or  plains  of  Roncesvalles,  only  one  giant 
poppy  waved  in  the  wind,  and  as  it  waved 
it  hummed  "Remember  not."  And  by  its 
oak-like  stem  a  poet  sat,  dressed  like  a  shep- 
herd and  playing  an  ancient  tune  softly  upon 
a  pipe.  I  asked  him  if  the  fairies  had  passed 
that  way  or  anything  olden. 

He  said:  "The  poppy  has  grown  apace 
and  is  killing  gods  and  fairies.  Its  fumes 

51 


52  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

are  suffocating  the  world,  and  its  roots  drain 
it  of  its  beautiful  strength."  And  I  asked 
him  why  he  sat  on  the  hills  I  knew,  playing 
an  olden  tune. 

And  he  answered:  "Because  the  tune  is 
bad  for  the  poppy,  which  would  otherwise 
grow  more  swiftly;  and  because  if  the 
brotherhood  of  which  I  am  one  were  to 
cease  to  pipe  on  the  hills  men  would  stray 
over  the  world  and  be  lost  or  come  to  terri- 
ble ends.  We  think  we  have  saved  Aga- 
memnon." 

Then  he  fell  to  piping  again  that  olden 
tune,  while  the  wind  among  the  poppy's 
sleepy  petals  murmured  "Remember  not. 
Remember  not." 


ROSES 

1KNOW  a  roadside  where  the  wild  rose 
blooms  with  a  strange  abundance. 
There  is  a  beauty  in  the  blossoms  too  of  an 
almost  exotic  kind,  a  taint  of  deeper  pink 
that  shocks  the  Puritan  flowers.  Two  hun- 
dred generations  ago  (generations,  I  mean, 
of  roses)  this  was  a  village  street;  there  was 
a  floral  decadence  when  they  left  their  sim- 
ple life  and  the  roses  came  from  the  wilder- 
ness to  clamber  round  houses  of  men. 

Of  all  the  memories  of  that  little  village, 
of  all  the  cottages  that  stood  there,  of  all 
the  men  and  women  whose  homes  they  were, 
nothing  remains  but  a  more  beautiful  blush 
on  the  faces  of  the  roses. 

I  hope  that  when  London  is  clean  passed 
away  and  the  defeated  fields  come  back 

53 


54  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

again,  like  an  exiled  people  returning  after 
a  war,  they  may  find  some  beautiful  thing 
to  remind  them  of  it  all;  because  we  have 
loved  a  little  that  swart  old  city. 


THE  MAN  WITH  THE  GOLDEN 
EAR-RINGS 

IT  may  be  that  I  dreamed  this.  So  much 
at  least  is  certain — that  I  turned  one 
day  from  the  traffic  of  a  city,  and  came  to 
its  docks  and  saw  its  slimy  wharves  going 
down  green  and  steep  into  the  water,  and 
saw  the  huge  grey  river  slipping  by  and 
the  lost  things  that  went  with  it  turning 
over  and  over,  and  I  thought  of  the  nations 
and  unpitying  Time,  and  saw  and  marvelled 
at  the  queenly  ships  come  newly  from  the 
sea. 

It  was  then,  if  I  mistake  not,  that  I  saw 
leaning  against  a  wall,  with  his  face  to  the 
ships,  a  man  with  golden  ear-rings.  His 
skin  had  the  dark  tint  of  the  southern  men: 
the  deep  black  hairs  of  his  moustache  were 
whitened  a  little  with  salt;  he  wore  a  dark 

55 


56  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

blue  jacket  such  as  sailors  wear,  and  the  long 
boots  of  seafarers,  but  the  look  in  his  eyes 
was  further  afield  than  the  ships,  he  seemed 
to  be  beholding  the  farthest  things. 

Even  when  I  spoke  to  him  he  did  not 
call  home  that  look,  but  answered  me 
dreamily  with  that  same  fixed  stare  as 
though  his  thoughts  were  heaving  on  far  and 
lonely  seas.  I  asked  him  what  ship  he  had 
come  by,  for  there  were  many  there.  The 
sailing  ships  were  there  with  their  sails  all 
furled  and  their  masts  straight  and  still  like 
a  wintry  forest ;  the  steamers  were  there,  and 
great  liners,  puffing  up  idle  smoke  into  the 
twilight.  He  answered  he  had  come  by  none 
of  them.  I  asked  him  what  line  he  worked 
on,  for  he  was  clearly  a  sailor;  I  mentioned 
well-known  lines,  but  he  did  not  know  them. 
Then  I  asked  him  where  he  worked  and  what 
he  was.  And  he  said:  "I  work  in  the  Sar- 
gasso Sea,  and  I  am  the  last  of  the  pirates, 
the  last  left  alive."  And  I  shook  him  by  the 
hand  I  do  not  know  how  many  times.  I 


MAN  WITH  EAR-RINGS       57 

said:  "We  feared  you  were  dead.  We 
feared  you  were  dead."  And  he  answered 
sadly:  "No.  No.  I  have  sinned  too  deeply 
on  the  Spanish  seas:  I  am  not  allowed  to 
die." 


THE   DREAM  OF   KING  KARNA- 
VOOTRA 

KING  KARNA-VOOTRA  sitting  on 
his  throne  commanding  all  things 
said:  "I  very  clearly  saw  last  night  the 
queenly  Vava-Nyria.  Though  partly  she 
was  hidden  by  great  clouds  that  swept  con- 
tinually by  her,  rolling  over  and  over,  yet  her 
face  was  unhidden  and  shone,  being  full  of 
moonlight. 

"I  said  to  her:  'Walk  with  me  by  the 
great  pools  in  many-gardened,  beautiful  Is- 
trakhan  where  the  lilies  float  that  give  delec- 
table dreams;  or,  drawing  aside  the  curtain 
of  hanging  orchids,  pass  with  me  thence 
from  the  pools  by  a  secret  path  through  the 
else  impassable  jungle  that  fills  the  only  way 
between  the  mountains  that  shut  in  Istra- 
khan.  They  shut  it  in  and  look  on  it  with  joy 

58 


KING  KARNA-VOOTRA        59 

at  morning  and  at  evening  when  the  pools 
are  strange  with  light,  till  in  their  gladness 
sometimes  there  melts  the  deadly  snow  that 
kills  upon  lonely  heights  the  mountaineer. 
They  have  valleys  among  them  older  than 
the  wrinkles  in  the  moon. 

'  'Come  with  me  thence  or  linger  with 
me  there  and  either  we  shall  come  to  roman- 
tic lands  which  the  men  of  the  caravans  only 
speak  of  in  song;  or  else  we  shall  listlessly 
walk  in  a  land  so  lovely  that  even  the  butter- 
flies that  float  about  it  when  they  see  their 
images  flash  in  the  sacred  pools  are  terrified 
by  their  beauty,  and  each  night  we  shall  hear 
the  myriad  nightingales  all  in  one  chorus 
sing  the  stars  to  death.  Do  this  and  I  will 
send  heralds  far  from  here  with  tidings  of 
thy  beauty;  and  they  shall  run  and  come  to 
Sendara  and  men  shall  know  it  there  who 
herd  brown  sheep;  and  from  Sendara  the 
rumor  shall  spread  on,  down  either  bank  of 


60  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

the  holy  river  of  Zoth,  till  the  people  that 
make  wattles  in  the  plains  shall  hear  of  it 
and  sing ;  but  the  heralds  shall  go  northward 
along  the  hills  until  they  come  to  Sooma. 
And  in  that  golden  city  they  shall  tell  the 
kings,  that  sit  in  their  lofty  alabaster  house, 
of  thy  strange  and  sudden  smiles.  And 
often  in  distant  markets  shall  thy  story  be 
told  by  merchants  out  from  Sooma  as  they 
sit  telling  careless  tales  to  lure  men  to  their 
wares. 

"  'And  the  heralds  passing  thence  shall 
come  even  to  Ingra,  to  Ingra  where  they 
dance.  And  there  they  shall  tell  of  thee, 
so  that  thy  name  long  hence  shall  be  sung 
in  that  joyous  city.  And  there  they  shall 
borrow  camels  and  pass  over  the  sands  and 
go  by  desert  ways  to  distant  Nirid  to  tell  of 
thee  to  the  lonely  men  in  the  mountain  mon- 
asteries. 

"  'Come  with  me  even  now  for  it  is 
Spring.' " 


KING  KARNA-VOOTRA        61 

"And  as  I  said  this  she  faintly  yet  per- 
ceptibly shook  her  head.  And  it  was  only 
then  I  remembered  my  youth  was  gone,  and 
she  dead  forty  years." 


THE    STORM 

THEY  saw  a  little  ship  that  was  far  at 
sea  and  that  went  by  the  name  of  the 
Petite  Esperance.  And  because  of  its  un- 
couth rig  and  its  lonely  air  and  the  look  that 
it  had  of  coming  from  strangers'  lands  they 
said:  "It  is  neither  a  ship  to  greet  nor  de- 
sire, nor  yet  to  succor  when  in  the  hands  of 
the  sea." 

And  the  sea  rose  up  as  is  the  wont  of  the 
sea  and  the  little  ship  from  afar  was  in  his 
hands,  and  frailer  than  ever  seemed  its 
feeble  masts  with  their  sails  of  fantastic  cut 
and  their  alien  flags.  And  the  sea  made  a 
great  and  very  triumphing  voice,  as  the  sea 
doth.  And  then  there  arose  a  wave  that  was 
very  strong,  even  the  ninth-born  son  of  the 
hurricane  and  the  tide,  and  hid  the  little 

62 


THE  STORM  63 

ship  and  hid  the  whole  of  the  far  parts  of 
the  sea.  Thereat  said  those  who  stood  on 
the  good  dry  land : 

;  'Twas  but  a  little  worthless,  alien  ship 
and  it  is  sunk  at  sea,  and  it  is  good  and 
right  that  the  storm  have  spoil."  And  they 
turned  and  watched  the  course  of  the 
merchantmen,  laden  with  silver  and  appeas- 
ing spice ;  year  after  year  they  cheered  them 
into  port  and  praised  their  goods  and  their 
familiar  sails.  And  many  years  went  by. 

And  at  last  with  decks  and  bulwarks 
covered  with  cloth  of  gold ;  with  age-old  par- 
rots that  had  known  the  troubadours,  sing- 
ing illustrious  songs  and  preening  their 
feathers  of  gold;  with  a  hold  full  of  emer- 
alds and  rubies ;  all  silken  with  Indian  loot ; 
furling  as  it  came  in  its  way-worn  alien  sails, 
a  galleon  glided  into  port,  shutting  the  sun- 
light from  the  merchantmen:  and  lo!  it 
loomed  the  equal  of  the  cliffs. 

"Who  are  you,"  they  asked,  "far-trav- 
elled, wonderful  ship?" 


64  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

And  they  said:    "The  Petite  Esperance" 
"O,"    said   the   people  on   shore.      "We 

thought  you  were  sunk  at  sea." 

"Sunk  at  sea?"  sang  the  sailors.     "We 

could  not  be  sunk  at  sea — we  had  the  gods 

on  board." 


A  MISTAKEN  IDENTITY 

FAME  as  she  walked  at  evening  in  a  city 
saw  the  painted  face  of  Notoriety 
flaunting  beneath  a  gas-lamp,  and  many 
kneeled  unto  her  in  the  dirt  of  the  road. 

"Who  are  you?"  Fame  said  to  her. 

"I  am  Fame,"  said  Notoriety. 

Then  Fame  stole  softly  away  so  that  no 
one  knew  she  had  gone. 

And  Notoriety  presently  went  forth  and 
all  her  worshippers  rose  and  followed  after, 
and  she  led  them,  as  was  most  meet,  to  her 
native  Pit. 


65 


THE  TRUE  HISTORY  OF  THE 
HARE  AND  THE  TORTOISE 

FOR  a  long  time  there  was  doubt  with 
acrimony  among  the  beasts  as  to 
whether  the  Hare  or  the  Tortoise  could  run 
the  swifter.  Some  said  the  Hare  was  the 
swifter  of  the  two  because  he  had  such  long 
ears,  and  others  said  that  the  Tortoise  was 
the  swifter  because  anyone  whose  shell  was 
so  hard  as  that  should  be  able  to  run  hard 
too.  And  lo,  the  forces  of  estrangement  and 
disorder  perpetually  postponed  a  decisive 
contest. 

But  when  there  was  nearly  war  among 
the  beasts,  at  last  an  arrangement  was  come 
to  and  it  was  decided  that  the  Hare  and  the 
Tortoise  should  run  a  race  of  five  hundred 
yards  so  that  all  should  see  who  was  right. 

"Ridiculous  nonsense!"  said  the  Hare, 
66 


HARE  AND  TORTOISE        67 

and  it  was  all  his  backers  could  do  to  get 
him  to  run. 

"The  contest  is  most  welcome  to  me," 
said  the  Tortoise.  "I  shall  not  shirk  it." 

O,  how  his  backers  cheered. 

Feeling  ran  high  on  the  day  of  the  race; 
the  goose  rushed  at  the  fox  and  nearly 
pecked  him.  Both  sides  spoke  loudly  of  the 
approaching  victory  up  to  the  very  moment 
of  the  race. 

"I  am  absolutely  confident  of  success," 
said  the  Tortoise.  But  the  Hare  said  noth- 
ing, he  looked  bored  and  cross.  Some  of 
his  supporters  deserted  him  then  and  went 
to  the  other  side,  who  were  loudly  cheering 
the  Tortoise's  inspiriting  words.  But  many 
remained  with  the  Hare.  "We  shall  not 
be  disappointed  in  him,"  they  said.  "A 
beast  with  such  long  ears  is  bound  to  win." 

"Run  hard,"  said  the  supporters  of  the 
Tortoise. 

And  "run  hard"  became  a  kind  of  catch- 
phrase  which  everybody  repeated  to  one  an- 


68  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

other.  "Hard  shell  and  hard  living.  That's 
what  the  country  wants.  Run  hard,"  they 
said.  And  these  words  were  never  uttered 
but  multitudes  cheered  from  their  hearts. 

Then  they  were  off,  and  suddenly  there 
was  a  hush. 

The  Hare  dashed  off  for  about  a  hundred 
yards,  then  he  looked  round  to  see  where 
his  rival  was. 

"It  is  rather  absurd,"  he  said,  "to  race 
with  a  Tortoise."  And  he  sat  down  and 
scratched  himself.  "Run  hard!  Run 
hard!"  shouted  some. 

"Let  him  rest,"  shouted  others.  And  "let 
him  rest"  became  a  catch-phrase  too. 

And  after  a  while  his  rival  drew  near  to 
him. 

"There  comes  that  damned  Tortoise,"  said 
the  Hare,  and  he  got  up  and  ran  as  hard 
as  he  could  so  that  he  should  not  let  the  Tor- 
toise beat  him. 

"Those  ears  will  win,"  said  his  friends. 
"Those  ears  will  win;  and  establish  upon 


HARE  AND  TORTOISE        69 

an  incontestable  footing  the  truth  of  what 
we  have  said."  And  some  of  them  turned 
to  the  backers  of  the  Tortoise  and  said: 
"What  about  your  beast  now?" 

"Run  hard,"  they  replied.     "Run  hard." 

The  Hare  ran  on  for  nearly  three  hundred 
yards,  nearly  in  fact  as  far  as  the  winning- 
post,  when  it  suddenly  struck  him  what  a 
fool  he  looked  running  races  with  a  Tor- 
toise who  was  nowhere  in  sight,  and  he 
sat  down  again  and  scratched. 

"Run  hard.  Run  hard,"  said  the  crowd, 
and  "Let  him  rest." 

"Whatever  is  the  use  of  it?"  said  the 
Hare,  and  this  time  he  stopped  for  good. 
Some  say  he  slept. 

There  was  desperate  excitement  for  an 
hour  or  two,  and  then  the  Tortoise  won. 

"Run  hard.  Run  hard,"  shouted  his  back- 
er*. "Hard  shell  and  hard  living:  that's 
what  has  done  it."  And  then  they  asked 
the  Tortoise  what  his  achievement  signified, 
and  he  went  and  asked  the  Turtle.  And 


70  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

the  Turtle  said:  "It  is  a  glorious  victory 
for  the  forces  of  swiftness."  And  then 
the  Tortoise  repeated  it  to  his  friends.  And 
all  the  beasts  said  nothing  else  for  years. 
And  even  to  this  day  "a  glorious  victory  for 
the  forces  of  swiftness"  is  a  catch-phrase 
in  the  house  of  the  snail. 

And  the  reason  that  this  version  of  the 
race  is  not  widely  known  is  that  very  few 
of  those  that  witnessed  it  survived  the  great 
forest-fire  that  happened  shortly  after.  It 
came  up  over  the  weald  by  night  with  a 
great  wind.  The  Hare  and  the  Tortoise 
and  a  very  few  of  the  beasts  saw  it  far  off 
from  a  high  bare  hill  that  was  at  the  edge 
of  the  trees,  and  they  hurriedly  called  a  meet- 
ing to  decide  what  messenger  they  should 
send  to  warn  the  beasts  in  the  forest. 

They  sent  the  Tortoise. 


ALONE   THE  IMMORTALS 

I  HEARD  it  said  that  far  away  from 
here,  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  deserts 
of  Cathay  and  in  a  country  dedicate  to 
winter,  are  all  the  years  that  are  dead.  And 
there  a  certain  valley  shuts  them  in  and 
hides  them,  as  rumor  has  it,  from  the  world, 
but  not  from  the  sight  of  the  moon  nor 
from  those  that  dream  in  his  rays. 

And  I  said:  I  will  go  from  here  by  ways 
of  dream  and  I  will  come  to  that  valley  and 
enter  in  and  mourn  there  for  the  good  years 
that  are  dead.  And  I  said:  I  will  take  a 
wreath,  a  wreath  of  mourning,  and  lay  it  at 
their  feet  in  token  of  my  sorrow  for  their 
dooms. 

And  when  I  sought  about  among  the 
flowers,  among  the  flowers  for  my  wreath  of 
mourning,  the  lily  looked  too  large  and  the 

71 


72  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

laurel  looked  too  solemn  and  I  found  noth- 
ing frail  enough  nor  slender  to  serve  as  an 
offering  to  the  years  that  were  dead.  And 
at  last  I  made  a  slender  wreath  of  daisies 
in  the  manner  that  I  had  seen  them  made 
in  one  of  the  years  that  is  dead. 

"This,"  said  I,  "is  scarce  less  fragile  or 
less  frail  than  one  of  those  delicate  forgot- 
ten years."  Then  I  took  my  wreath  in  my 
hand  and  went  from  here.  And  when  I  had 
come  by  paths  of  mystery  to  that  roman- 
tic land,  where  the  valley  that  rumor  told 
of  lies  close  to  the  mountainous  moon,  I 
searched  among  the  grass  for  those  poor 
slight  years  for  whom  I  brought  my  sorrow 
and  my  wreath.  And  when  I  found  there 
nothing  in  the  grass  I  said:  "Time  has  shat- 
tered them  and  swept  them  away  and  left 
not  even  any  faint  remains." 

But  looking  upwards  in  the  blaze  of  the 
moon  I  suddenly  saw  colossi  sitting  near, 
and  towering  up  and  blotting  out  the  stars 
and  filling  the  night  with  blackness ;  and  at 


ALONE  THE  IMMORTALS      73 

those  idols'  feet  I  saw  praying  and  making 
obeisance  kings  and  the  days  that  are  and 
all  times  and  all  cities  and  all  nations  and 
all  their  gods.  Neither  the  smoke  of  incense 
nor  of  the  sacrifice  burning  reached  those 
colossal  heads,  they  sat  there  not  to  be 
measured,  not  to  be  overthrown,  not  to  be 
worn  away. 

I  said:    "Who  are  those?" 

One  answered:    "Alone  the  Immortals." 

And  I  said  sadly:  "I  came  not  to  see 
dread  gods,  but  I  came  to  shed  my  tears 
and  to  offer  flowers  at  the  feet  of  certain 
little  years  that  are  dead  and  may  not  come 
again." 

He  answered  me:  "These  are  the  years 
that  are  dead,  alone  the  immortals;  all 
years  to  be  are  Their  children — They  fash- 
ioned their  smiles  and  their  laughter;  all 
earthly  kings  They  have  crowned,  all  gods 
They  have  created;  all  the  events  to  be  flow 
down  from  Their  feet  like  a  river,  the  worlds 
are  flying  pebbles  that  They  have  already 


74  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

thrown,  and  Time  and  all  his  centuries  be- 
hind him  kneel  there  with  bended  crests  in 
token  of  vassalage  at  Their  potent  feet." 

And  when  I  heard  this  I  turned  away 
with  my  wreath,  and  went  back  to  my  own 
land  comforted. 


A  MORAL  LITTLE  TALE 

fTHHERE  was  once  an  earnest  Puritan 
A  who  held  it  wrong1  to  dance.  And  for 
his  principles  he  labored  hard,  his  was  a 
zealous  life.  And  there  loved  him  all  of 
those  who  hated  the  dance;  and  those  that 
loved  the  dance  respected  him  too;  they 
said  "He  is  a  pure,  good  man  and  acts  ac- 
cording to  his  lights." 

He  did  much  to  discourage  dancing  and 
helped  to  close  several  Sunday  entertain- 
ments. Some  kinds  of  poetry,  he  said,  he 
liked,  but  not  the  fanciful  kind  as  that  might 
corrupt  the  thoughts  of  the  very  young. 
He  always  dressed  in  black. 

He  was  interested  in  morality  and  was 
quite  sincere  and  there  grew  to  be  much 
respect  on  Earth  for  his  honest  face  and 
his  flowing  pure-white  beard. 

75 


76  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

One  night  the  Devil  appeared  unto  him 
in  a  dream  and  said  "Well  done." 

"Avaunt,"  said  that  earnest  man. 

"No,  no,  friend,"  said  the  Devil. 

"Dare  not  to  call  me  'friend,'  "  he  an- 
swered bravely. 

"Come,  come,  friend,"  said  the  Devil. 
"Have  you  not  done  my  work?  Have  you 
not  put  apart  the  couples  that  would  dance? 
Have  you  not  checked  their  laughter  and 
their  accursed  mirth?  Have  you  not  worn 
my  livery  of  black?  O  friend,  friend,  you 
do  not  know  what  a  detestable  thing  it  is 
to  sit  in  hell  and  hear  people  being  happy, 
and  singing  in  theatres  and  singing  in  the 
fields,  and  whispering  after  dances  under  the 
moon,"  and  he  fell  to  cursing  fearfully. 

"It  is  you,"  said  the  Puritan,  "that  put 
into  their  hearts  the  evil  desire  to  dance; 
and  black  is  God's  own  livery,  not  yours." 

And  the  Devil  laughed  contemptuously 
and  spoke. 

"He  only  made  the  silly  colors,"  he  said, 


A  MORAL  LITTLE  TALE      77 

"and  useless  dawns  on  hill-slopes  facing 
South,  and  butterflies  flapping  along  them 
as  soon  as  the  sun  rose  high,  and  foolish 
maidens  coming  out  to  dance,  and  the  warm 
mad  West  wind,  and  worst  of  all  that  per- 
nicious influence  Love." 

And  when  the  Devil  said  that  God  made 
Love  that  earnest  man  sat  up  in  bed  and 
shouted  "Blasphemy!  Blasphemy!" 

"It's  true,"  said  the  Devil.  "It  isn't  I 
that  send  the  village  fools  muttering  and 
whispering  two  by  two  in  the  woods  when 
the  harvest  moon  is  high,  it's  as  much  as 
I  can  bear  even  to  see  them  dancing." 

"Then,"  said  the  man,  "I  have  mis- 
taken right  for  wrong;  but  as  soon  as  I 
wake  I  will  fight  you  yet." 

"O,  no  you  don't,"  said  the  Devil.  "You 
don't  wake  up  out  of  this  sleep." 

And  somewhere  far  away  Hell's  black 
steel  doors  were  opened,  and  arm  in  arm 
those  two  were  drawn  within,  and  the  doors 
shut  behind  them  and  still  they  went  arm 


78  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

in  arm,  trudging  further  and  further  into 
the  deeps  of  Hell,  and  it  was  that  Puritan's 
punishment  to  know  that  those  that  he  cared 
for  on  Earth  would  do  evil  as  he  had  done. 


THE  RETURN  OF  SONG 

THE  swans  are  singing  again,"  said  to 
one  another  the  gods.  And  looking 
downwards,  for  my  dreams  had  taken  me  to 
some  fair  and  far  Valhalla,  I  saw  below  me 
an  iridescent  bubble  not  greatly  larger  than 
a  star  shine  beautifully  but  faintly,  and  up 
and  up  from  it  looking  larger  and  larger 
came  a  flock  of  white,  innumerable  swans, 
singing  and  singing  and  singing,  till  it 
seemed  as  though  even  the  gods  were  wild 
ships  swimming  in  music. 

"What  is  it?"  I  said  to  one  that  was  hum- 
ble among  the  gods. 

"Only  a  world  has  ended,"  he  said  to  me* 
"and  the  swans  are  coming  back  to  the  gods 
returning  the  gift  of  song." 

"A  whole  world  dead!"  I  said. 

"Dead,"  said  he  that  was  humble  among 
79 


80  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

the  gods.  "The  worlds  are  not  for  ever; 
only  song  is  immortal." 

"Look!  Look!"  he  said.  "There  will  be 
a  new  one  soon." 

And  I  looked  and  saw  the  larks,  going 
down  from  the  gods. 


SPRING  IN  TOWN 

AT  a  street  corner  sat,  and  played  with 
a  wind,  Winter  disconsolate. 
Still  tingled  the  fingers  of  the  passers-by 
and  still  their  breath  was  visible,  and  still 
they  huddled  their  chins  into  their  coats 
when  turning  a  corner  they  met  with  a  new 
wind,  still  windows  lighted  early  sent  out 
into  the  street  the  thought  of  romantic  com- 
fort by  evening  fires ;  these  things  still  were, 
yet  the  throne  of  Winter  tottered,  and  every 
breeze  brought  tidings  of  further  fortresses 
lost  on  lakes  or  boreal  hill-slopes.  And  not 
any  longer  as  a  king  did  Winter  appear  in 
those  streets,  as  when  the  city  was  decked 
with  gleaming  white  to  greet  him  as  a  con- 
queror and  he  rode  in  with  his  glittering 
icicles  and  haughty  retinue  of  prancing 
winds,  but  he  sat  there  with  a  little  wind 

81 


82  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

at  the  corner  of  the  street  like  some  old 
blind  beggar  with  his  hungry  dog.  And  as 
to  some  old  blind  beggar  Death  approaches, 
and  the  alert  ears  of  the  sightless  man 
prophetically  hear  his  far-off  footfall,  so 
there  came  suddenly  to  Winter's  ears  the 
sound,  from  some  neighboring  garden,  of 
Spring  approaching  as  she  walked  on 
daisies.  And  Spring  approaching  looked  at 
huddled  inglorious  Winter. 

"Begone,"  said  Spring. 

"There  is  nothing  for  you  to  do  here," 
said  Winter  to  her.  Nevertheless  he  drew 
about  him  his  grey  and  battered  cloak  and 
rose  and  called  to  his  little  bitter  wind  and 
up  a  side  street  that  led  northward  strode 
away. 

Pieces  of  paper  and  tall  clouds  of  dust 
went  with  him  as  far  as  the  city's  outer  gate. 
He  turned  then  and  called  to  Spring: 
"You  can  do  nothing  in  this  city,"  he  said; 
then  he  marched  homeward  over  plains  and 
sea  and  heard  his  old  winds  howling  as  he 


83 

marched.  The  ice  broke  up  behind  him  and 
foundered  like  navies.  To  left  and  to  right 
of  him  flew  the  flocks  of  the  sea-birds,  and 
far  before  him  the  geese's  triumphant  cry 
went  like  a  clarion.  Greater  and  greater 
grew  his  stature  as  he  went  northwards  and 
ever  more  kingly  his  mien.  Now  he  took 
baronies  at  a  stride  and  now  counties  and 
came  again  to  the  snow-white  frozen  lands 
where  the  wolves  came  out  to  meet  him  and, 
draping  himself  anew  with  old  grey  clouds, 
strode  through  the  gates  of  his  invincible 
home,  two  old  ice  barriers  swinging  on  pil- 
lars of  ice  that  had  never  known  the  sun. 

So  the  town  was  left  to  Spring.  And  she 
peered  about  to  see  what  she  could  do  with 
it.  Presently  she  saw  a  dejected  dog  coming 
prowling  down  the  road,  so  she  sang  to  him 
and  he  gambolled.  I  saw  him  next  day 
strutting  by  with  something  of  an  air. 
Where  there  were  trees  she  went  to  them 
and  whispered,  and  they  sang  the  arboreal 
song  that  only  trees  can  hear,  and  the  green 


84  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

buds  came  peeping  out  as  stars  while  yet  it 
is  twilight,  secretly  one  by  one.  She  went 
to  gardens  and  awaked  from  dreaming  the 
warm  maternal  earth.  In  little  patches  bare 
and  desolate  she  called  up  like  a  flame  the 
golden  crocus,  or  its  purple  brother  like  an 
emperor's  ghost.  She  gladdened  the  grace- 
less backs  of  untidy  houses,  here  with  a 
weed,  there  with  a  little  grass.  She  said  to 
the  air,  "Be  joyous." 

Children  began  to  know  that  daisies  blew 
in  unfrequented  corners.  Buttonholes  be- 
gan to  appear  in  the  coats  of  the  young  men. 
The  work  of  Spring  was  accomplished. 


HOW  THE  ENEMY  CAME  TO 
THLUNRANA 

IT  had  been  prophesied  of  old  and  fore- 
seen from  the  ancient  days  that  its  en- 
emy would  come  upon  Thlunrana.  And  the 
date  of  its  doom  was  known  and  the  gate 
by  which  it  would  enter,  yet  none  had 
prophesied  of  the  enemy  who  he  was  save 
that  he  was  of  the  gods  though  he  dwelt 
with  men.  Meanwhile  Thlunrana,  that  se- 
cret lamaserai,  that  chief  cathedral  of  wiz- 
ardry, was  the  terror  of  the  valley  in  which 
it  stood  and  of  all  lands  round  about  it. 
So  narrow  and  high  were  the  windows  and 
so  strange  when  lighted  at  night  that  they 
seemed  to  regard  men  with  the  demoniac 
leer  of  something  that  had  a  secret  in  the 
dark.  Who  were  the  magicians  and  the 
deputy-magicians  and  the  great  arch-wizard 

85 


86  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

of  that  furtive  place  nobody  knew,  for  they 
went  veiled  and  hooded  and  cloaked  com- 
pletely in  black. 

Though  her  doom  was  close  upon  her  and 
the  enemy  of  prophecy  should  come  that 
very  night  through  the  open,  southward 
door  that  was  named  the  Gate  of  the  Doom, 
yet  that  rocky  edifice  Thlunrana  remained 
mysterious  still,  venerable,  terrible,  dark, 
and  dreadfully  crowned  with  her  doom.  It 
was  not  often  that  anyone  dared  wander 
near  to  Thlunrana  by  night  when  the  moan 
of  the  magicians  invoking  we  know  not 
Whom  rose  faintly  from  inner  chambers, 
scaring  the  drifting  bats:  but  on  the  last 
night  of  all  the  man  from  the  black-thatched 
cottage  by  the  five  pine-trees  came,  because 
he  would  see  Thlunrana  once  again  before 
the  enemy  that  was  divine,  but  that  dwelt 
with  man,  should  come  against  it  and  it 
should  be  no  more.  Up  the  dark  valley  he 
went  like  a  bold  man,  but  his  fears  were  thick 
upon  him ;  his  bravery  bore  their  weight  but 


THLUNRANA  87 

stooped  a  little  beneath  them.  He  went  in 
at  the  southward  gate  that  is  named  the 
Gate  of  the  Doom.  He  came  into  a  dark 
hall,  and  up  a  marble  stairway  passed  to  see 
the  last  of  Thlunrana.  At  the  top  a  curtain 
of  black  velvet  hung  and  he  passed  into  a 
chamber  heavily  hung  with  curtains,  with  a 
gloom  in  it  that  was  blacker  than  anything 
they  could  account  for.  In  a  sombre  cham- 
ber beyond,  seen  through  a  vacant  archway, 
magicians  with  lighted  tapers  plied  their 
wizardry  and  whispered  incantations.  All 
the  rats  in  the  place  were  passing  away,  go- 
ing whimpering  down  the  stairway.  The 
man  from  the  black-thatched  cottage  passed 
through  that  second  chamber :  the  magicians 
did  not  look  at  him  and  did  not  cease  to 
whisper.  He  passed  from  them  through 
heavy  curtains  still  of  black  velvet  and  came 
into  a  chamber  of  black  marble  where  noth- 
ing stirred.  Only  one  taper  burned  in  the 
third  chamber;  there  were  no  windows.  On 
the  smooth  floor  and  under  the  smooth  wall  a 


88  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

silk  pavilion  stood  with  its  curtains  drawn 
close  together:  this  was  the  holy  of  holies 
of  that  ominous  place,  its  inner  mystery. 
One  on  each  side  of  it  dark  figures  crouched, 
either  of  men  or  women  or  cloaked  stone, 
or  of  beasts  trained  to  be  silent.  When  the 
awful  stillness  of  the  mystery  was  more 
than  he  could  bear  the  man  from  the  black- 
thatched  cottage  by  the  five  pine-trees  went 
up  to  the  silk  pavilion,  and  with  a  bold  and 
nervous  clutch  of  the  hand  drew  one  of  the 
curtains  aside,  and  saw  the  inner  mystery, 
and  laughed.  And  the  prophecy  was  ful- 
filled, and  Thlunrana  was  never  more  a  ter- 
ror to  the  valley,  but  the  magicians  passed 
away  from  their  terrific  halls  and  fled 
through  the  open  fields  wailing  and  beating 
their  breasts,  for  laughter  was  the  enemy 
that  was  doomed  to  come  against  Thlunrana 
through  her  southward  gate  (that  was 
named  the  Gate  of  the  Doom),  and  it  is  of 
the  gods  but  dwells  with  man. 


A  LOSING  GAME 

ONCE  in  a  tavern  Man  met  face  to  skull 
with  Death.    Man  entered  gaily  but 
Death  gave  no  greeting,  he  sat  with  his  jowl 
morosely  over  an  ominous  wine. 

"Come,  come,"  said  Man,  "we  have  been 
antagonists  long,  and  if  I  were  losing  yet  I 
should  not  be  surly." 

But  Death  remained  unfriendly  watching 
his  bowl  of  wine  and  gave  no  word  in  an- 
swer. 

Then  Man  solicitously  moved  nearer  to 
him  and,  speaking  cheerily  still,  "Come, 
come,"  he  said  again,  "you  must  not  resent 
defeat." 

And  still  Death  was  gloomy  and  cross  and 
sipped  at  his  infamous  wine  and  would  not 
look  up  at  Man  and  would  not  be  compan- 
ionable. 

89 


90  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

But  Man  hated  gloom  either  in  beast  or 
god,  and  it  made  him  unhappy  to  see  his 
adversary's  discomfort,  all  the  more  because 
he  was  the  cause,  and  still  he  tried  to  cheer 
him. 

"Have  you  not  slain  the  Dinatherium?" 
he  said.  "Have  you  not  put  out  the  Moon? 
Why!  you  will  beat  me  yet." 

And  with  a  dry  and  barking  sound  Death 
wept  and  nothing  said;  and  presently  Man 
arose  and  went  wondering  away;  for  he 
knew  not  if  Death  wept  out  of  pity  for  his 
opponent,  or  because  he  knew  that  he  should 
not  have  such  sport  again  when  the  old 
game  was  over  and  Man  was  gone,  or 
whether  because  perhaps,  for  some  hidden 
reason,  he  could  never  repeat  on  Earth  his 
triumph  over  the  Moon. 


TAKING   UP   PICCADILLY 

GOING  down  Piccadilly  one  day  and 
nearing  Grosvenor  Place  I  saw,  if 
my  memory  is  not  at  fault,  some  workmen 
with  their  coats  off — or  so  they  seemed. 
They  had  pickaxes  in  their  hands  and  wore 
corduroy  trousers  and  that  little  leather  band 
below  the  knee  that  goes  by  the  astonish- 
ing name  of  "York-to-London." 

They  seemed  to  be  working  with  peculiar 
vehemence,  so  that  I  stopped  and  asked  one 
what  they  were  doing. 

"We  are  taking  up  Piccadilly,"  he  said 
to  me. 

"But  at  this  time  of  year?"  I  said.  "Is 
it  usual  in  June?" 

"We  are  not  what  we  seem,"  said  he. 

"Oh,  I  see,"  I  said,  "you  are  doing  it  for 
a  joke." 

91 


92  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

"Well  not  exactly  that,"  he  answered  me. 

"For  a  bet?"  I  said. 

"Not  precisely,"  said  he. 

And  then  I  looked  at  the  bit  that  they 
had  already  picked,  and  though  it  was 
broad  daylight  over  my  head  it  was  dark- 
ness down  there,  all  full  of  the  southern 
stars. 

"It  was  noisy  and  bad  and  we  grew 
aweary  of  it,"  said  he  that  wore  corduroy 
trousers.  "We  are  not  what  we  appear." 

They  were  taking  up  Piccadilly  alto- 
gether. 


AFTER   THE    FIRE 

WHEN  that  happened  which  had  been 
so  long  in  happening  and  the  world 
hit  a  black,  uncharted  star,  certain  tremen- 
dous creatures  out  of  some  other  world  came 
peering  among  the  cinders  to  see  if  there 
were  anything  there  that  it  were  worth  while 
to  remember.  They  spoke  of  the  great 
things  that  the  world  was  known  to  have 
had;  they  mentioned  the  mammoth.  And 
presently  they  saw  man's  temples,  silent 
and  windowless,  staring  like  empty  skulls. 

"Some  great  thing  has  been  here,"  one 
said,  "in  these  huge  places."  "It  was  the 
mammoth,"  said  one.  "Something  greater 
than  he,"  said  another. 

And  then  they  found  that  the  greatest 
thing  in  the  world  had  been  the  dreams  of 
man. 

93 


THE   CITY 

IN  time  as  well  as  in  space  my  fancy  roams 
far  from  here.  It  led  me  once  to  the 
edge  of  certain  cliffs  that  were  low  and  red 
and  rose  up  out  of  a  desert:  a  little  way  off 
in  the  desert  there  was  a  city.  It  was  even- 
ing, and  I  sat  and  watched  the  city. 

Presently  I  saw  men  by  threes  and  fours 
come  softly  stealing  out  of  that  city's  gate 
to  the  number  of  about  twenty.  I  heard  the 
hum  of  men's  voices  speaking  at  evening. 

"It  is  well  they  are  gone,"  they  said.  "It 
is  well  they  are  gone.  We  can  do  business 
now.  It  is  well  they  are  gone,"  And  the 
men  that  had  left  the  city  sped  away  over  the 
sand  and  so  passed  into  the  twilight. 

"Who  are  these  men?"  I  said  to  my  glit- 
tering leader. 

"The  poets,"  my  fancy  answered.  "The 
poets  and  artists." 

94 


THE  CITY  95 

"Why  do  they  steal  away?"  I  said  to  him. 
"And  why  are  the  people  glad  that  they 
have  gone?" 

He  said:  "It  must  be  some  doom  that  is 
going  to  fall  on  the  city,  something  has 
warned  them  and  they  have  stolen  away. 
Nothing  may  warn  the  people." 

I  heard  the  wrangling  voices,  glad  with 
commerce,  rise  up  from  the  city.  And  then 
I  also  departed,  for  there  was  an  ominous 
look  on  the  face  of  the  sky. 

And  only  a  thousand  years  later  I  passed 
that  way,  and  there  was  nothing,  even 
among  the  weeds,  of  what  had  been  that  city. 


THE   FOOD    OF   DEATH 

DEATH  was  sick.  But  they  brought 
him  bread  that  the  modern  bakers 
make,  whitened  with  alum,  and  the  tinned 
meats  of  Chicago,  with  a  pinch  of  our  mod- 
ern substitute  for  salt.  They  carried  him 
into  the  dining-room  of  a  great  hotel  (in 
that  close  atmosphere  Death  breathed  more 
freely) ,  and  there  they  gave  him  their  cheap 
Indian  tea.  They  brought  him  a  bottle  of 
wine  that  they  called  champagne.  Death 
drank  it  up.  They  bought  a  newspaper  and 
looked  up  the  patent  medicines;  they  gave 
him  the  foods  that  it  recommended  for  in- 
valids, and  a  little  medicine  as  prescribed  in 
the  paper.  They  gave  him  some  milk  and 
borax,  such  as  children  drink  in  England. 

Death  arose  ravening,  strong,  and  strode 
again  through  the  cities. 

96 


THE   LONELY   IDOL 

I  HAD  from  a  friend  an  old  outlandish 
stone,  a  little  swine-faced  idol  to  whom 
no  one  prayed. 

And  when  I  saw  his  melancholy  case  as 
he  sat  cross-legged  at  receipt  of  prayer, 
holding  a  little  scourge  that  the  years  had 
broken  (and  no  one  heeded  the  scourge  and 
no  one  prayed  and  no  one  came  with  squeal- 
ing sacrifice;  and  he  had  been  a  god),  then 
I  took  pity  on  the  little  forgotten  thing  and 
prayed  to  it  as  perhaps  they  prayed  long 
since,  before  the  coming  of  the  strange  dark 
ships,  and  humbled  myself  and  said : 

"O  idol,  idol  of  the  hard  pale  stone,  in- 
vincible to  the  years,  O  scourge-holder,  give 
ear  for  behold  I  pray. 

"O  little  pale-green  image  whose  wan- 
derings are  from  far,  know  thou  that  here  in 

97 


98  FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

i 

Europe  and  in  other  lands  near  by,  too  soon 
there  pass  from  us  the  sweets  and  song 
and  the  lion  strength  of  youth :  too  soon  do 
their  cheeks  fade,  their  hair  grow  grey  and 
our  beloved  die ;  too  brittle  is  beauty,  too  far 
off  is  fame  and  the  years  are  gathered  too 
soon;  there  are  leaves,  leaves  falling,  every- 
where falling;  there  is  autumn  among  men, 
autumn  and  reaping;  failure  there  is,  strug- 
gle, dying  and  weeping,  and  all  that  is  beau- 
tiful hath  not  remained  but  is  even  as  the 
glory  of  morning  upon  the  water. 

"Even  our  memories  are  gathered  too  with 
the  sound  of  the  ancient  voices,  the  pleas- 
ant ancient  voices  that  come  to  our  ears  no 
more;  the  very  gardens  of  our  childhood 
fade,  and  there  dims  with  the  speed  of  the 
years  even  the  mind's  own  eye. 

"O  be  not  any  more  the  friend  of  Time, 
for  the  silent  hurry  of  his  malevolent  feet 
have  trodden  down  what's  fairest;  I  almost 
hear  the  whimper  of  the  years  running  be- 


THE  LONELY  IDOL  99 

hind  him  hound-like,  and  it  takes  few  to 
tear  us. 

"All  that  is  beautiful  he  crushes  down  as 
a  big  man  tramples  daisies,  all  that  is  fair- 
est. How  very  fair  are  the  little  children 
of  men.  It  is  autumn  with  all  the  world, 
and  the  stars  weep  to  see  it. 

"Therefore  no  longer  be  the  friend  of 
Time,  who  will  not  let  us  be,  and  be  not 
good  to  him  but  pity  us,  and  let  lovely 
things  live  on  for  the  sake  of  our  tears." 

Thus  prayed  I  out  of  compassion  one 
windy  day  to  the  snout- faced  idol  to  whom 
no  one  kneeled. 


THE  SPHINX  IN  THEBES 
(MASSACHUSETTS) 

HERE  was  a  woman  in  a  steel-built 
city  who  had  all  that  money  could  buy, 
she  had  gold  and  dividends  and  trains  and 
houses,  and  she  had  pets  to  play  with,  but 
she  had  no  sphinx. 

So  she  besought  them  to  bring  her  a  live 
sphinx;  and  therefore  they  went  to  the  me- 
nageries, and  then  to  the  forests  and  the 
desert  places,  and  yet  could  find  no  sphinx. 

And  she  would  have  been  content  with  a 
little  lion  but  that  one  was  already  owned 
by  a  woman  she  knew ;  so  they  had  to  search 
the  world  again  for  a  sphinx. 

And  still  there  was  none. 

But  they  were  not  men  that  it  is  easy 
to  baffle,  and  at  last  they  found  a  sphinx 
in  a  desert  at  evening  watching  a  ruined 
100 


THEBES  (MASSACHUSETTS)  101 

temple  whose  gods  she  had  eaten  hundreds 
of  years  ago  when  her  hunger  was  on  her. 
And  they  cast  chains  on  her,  who  was  still 
with  an  ominous  stillness,  and  took  her 
westwards  with  them  and  brought  her  home. 

And  so  the  sphinx  came  to  the  steel-built 
city. 

And  the  woman  was  very  glad  that  she 
owned  a  sphinx :  but  the  sphinx  stared  long 
into  her  eyes  one  day  and  softly  asked  a 
riddle  of  the  woman. 

And  the  woman  could  not  answer,  and 
she  died. 

And  the  sphinx  is  silent  again  and  none 
knows  what  she  will  do. 


THE    REWARD 

ONE'S  spirit  goes  further  in  dreams 
than  it  does  by  day.     Wandering 
once  by  night  from  a  factory  city  I  came 
to  the  edge  of  Hell. 

The  place  was  foul  with  cinders  and  cast- 
off  things,  and  jagged,  half -buried  things 
with  shapeless  edges,  and  there  was  a  huge 
angel  with  a  hammer  building  in  plaster 
and  steel.  I  wondered  what  he  did  in  that 
dreadful  place.  I  hesitated,  then  asked  him 
what  he  was  building.  "We  are  adding  to 
Hell,"  he  said,  "to  keep  pace  with  the 
times."  "Don't  be  too  hard  on  them,"  I 
said,  for  I  had  just  come  out  of  a  compro- 
mising age  and  a  weakening  country.  The 
angel  did  not  answer.  "It  won't  be  as  bad 
as  the  old  hell,  will  it?"  I  said.  "Worse," 
said  the  angel. 

102 


THE  REWARD  103 

"How  can  you  reconcile  it  with  your  con- 
science as  a  Minister  of  Grace,"  I  said,  "to 
inflict  such  a  punishment?"  (They  talked 
like  this  in  the  city  whence  I  had  come  and  I 
could  not  avoid  the  habit  of  it.) 

"They  have  invented  a  new  cheap  yeast," 
said  the  angel. 

I  looked  at  the  legend  on  the  walls  of  the 
hell  that  the  angel  was  building,  the  words 
were  written  in  flame,  every  fifteen  seconds 
they  changed  their  color,  "Yeasto,  the  great 
new  yeast,  it  builds  up  body  and  brain,  and 
something  more." 

"They  shall  look  at  it  for  ever,"  the  angel 
said. 

"But  they  drove  a  perfectly  legitimate 
trade,"  I  said,  "the  law  allowed  it." 

The  angel  went  on  hammering  into  place 
the  huge  steel  uprights. 

"You  are  very  revengeful,"  I  said.  "Do 
you  never  rest  from  doing  this  terrible 
work?" 

"I  rested  one  Christmas  Day,"  the  angel 


104          FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

said,  "and  looked  and  saw  little  children 

dying  of  cancer.     I  shall  go  on  now  until 

the  fires  are  lit." 

"It  is  very  hard  to  prove,"  I  said,  "that 

the  yeast  is  as  bad  as  you  think." 
"After  all,"  I  said,  "they  must  live." 
And  the  angel  made  no  answer  but  went 

on  building  his  hell. 


THE  TROUBLE  IN  LEAFY 
GREEN  STREET 

SHE  went  to  the  idol-shop  in  Moleshill 
Street,  where  the  old  man  mumbles, 
and  said:  "I  want  a  god  to  worship  when  it 
is  wet." 

The  old  man  reminded  her  of  the  heavy 
penalties  that  rightly  attach  to  idolatry  and, 
when  he  had  enumerated  all,  she  answered 
him  as  was  meet:  "Give  me  a  god  to  wor- 
ship when  it  is  wet." 

And  he  went  to  the  back  places  of  his 
shop  and  sought  out  and  brought  her  a  god. 
The  same  was  carved  of  grey  stone  and  wore 
a  propitious  look  and  was  named,  as  the  old 
man  mumbled,  The  God  of  Rainy  Cheer- 
fulness. 

Now  it  may  be  that  long  confinement  to 
the  house  affects  adversely  the  liver,  or 

105 


106          FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

these  things  may  be  of  the  soul,  but  certain 
it  is  that  on  a  rainy  day  her  spirits  so  far 
descended  that  those  cheerful  creatures 
came  within  sight  of  the  Pit,  and,  having 
tried  cigarettes  to  no  good  end,  she  be- 
thought her  of  Moleshill  Street  and  the 
mumbling  man. 

He  brought  the  grey  idol  forth  and 
mumbled  of  guarantees,  although  he  put 
nothing  on  paper,  and  she  paid  him  there 
and  then  his  preposterous  price  and  took 
the  idol  away. 

And  on  the  next  wet  day  that  there  ever 
was  she  prayed  to  the  grey-stone  idol  that 
she  had  bought,  the  God  of  Rainy  Cheer- 
fulness (who  knows  with  what  ceremony  or 
what  lack  of  it?),  and  so  brought  down  on 
her  in  Leafy  Green  Street,  in  the  prosperous 
house  at  the  corner,  that  doom  of  which  all 
men  speak. 


mist  said  unto  the  mist:  "Let  us 
JL  go  up  into  the  Downs."  And  the  mist 
came  up  weeping. 

And  the  mist  went  into  the  high  places 
and  the  hollows. 

And  clumps  of  trees  in  the  distance  stood 
ghostly  in  the  haze. 

But  I  went  to  a  prophet,  one  who  loved 
the  Downs,  and  I  said  to  him:  "Why  does 
the  mist  come  up  weeping  into  the  Downs 
when  it  goes  into  the  high  places  and  the 
hollows?" 

And  he  answered:  "The  mist  is  the  com- 
pany of  a  multitude  of  souls  who  never  saw 
the  Downs,  and  now  are  dead.  Therefore 
they  come  up  weeping  into  the  Downs,  who 
are  dead  and  never  saw  them." 


107 


FURROW-MAKER 

HE  was  all  in  black,  but  his  friend  was 
dressed  in  brown,  members  of  two 
old  families. 

"Is  there  any  change  in  the  way  you  build 
your  houses?"  said  he  in  black. 

"No  change,"  said  the  other.    "And  you?" 

"We  change  not,"  he  said. 

A  man  went  by  in  the  distance  riding  a 
bicycle. 

"He  is  always  changing,"  said  the  one 
in  black,  "of  late  almost  every  century.  He 
is  uneasy.  Always  changing." 

"He  changes  the  way  he  builds  his  house, 
does  he  not?"  said  the  brown  one. 

"So  my  family  say,"  said  the  other. 
"They  say  he  has  changed  of  late." 

"They  say  he  takes  much  to  cities?"  the 
brown  one  said. 

108 


FURROW-MAKER  109 

"My  cousin  who  lives  in  belfries  tells  me 
so,"  said  the  black  one.  "He  says  he  is  much 
in  cities." 

"And  there  he  grows  lean?"  said  the 
brown  one. 

"Yes,  he  grows  lean." 

"Is  it  true  what  they  say?"  said  the 
brown  one. 

"Caw,"  said  the  black  one. 

"Is  it  true  that  he  cannot  live  many  cen- 
turies ?" 

"No,  no,"  said  the  black  one.  "Furrow- 
maker  will  not  die.  We  must  not  lose  fur- 
row-maker. He  has  been  foolish  of  late, 
he  has  played  with  smoke  and  is  sick.  His 
engines  have  wearied  him  and  his  cities  are 
evil.  Yes,  he  is  very  sick.  But  in  a  few 
centuries  he  will  forget  his  folly  and  we 
shall  not  lose  furrow-maker.  Time  out  of 
mind  he  has  delved  and  my  family  have  got 
their  food  from  the  raw  earth  behind  him. 
He  will  not  die." 

"But  they  say,  do  they  not?"  said  the 


110          FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

brown  one,  "his  cities  are  noisome,  and  that 
he  grows  sick  in  them  and  can  run  no  longer, 
and  that  it  is  with  him  as  it  is  with  us  when 
we  grow  too  many,  and  the  grass  has  the 
bitter  taste  in  the  rainy  season,  and  our 
young  grow  bloated  and  die." 

"Who  says  it?"  replied  the  black  one. 

"Pigeon,"  the  brown  one  answered.  "He 
came  back  all  dirty.  And  Hare  went  down 
to  the  edge  of  the  cities  once.  He  says  it 
too.  Man  was  too  sick  to  chase  him.  He 
thinks  that  Man  will  die,  and  his  wicked 
friend  Dog  with  him.  Dog,  he  will  die. 
That  nasty  fellow  Dog.  He  will  die  too,  the 
dirty  fellow!" 

"Pigeon  and  Hare!"  said  the  black  one. 
"We  shall  not  lose  furrow-maker." 

"Who  told  you  he  will  not  die?"  his  brown 
friend  said. 

"Who  told  me !"  the  black  one  said.  "My 
family  and  his  have  understood  each  other 
times  out  of  mind.  We  know  what  follies 
will  kill  each  other  and  what  each  may  sur- 


FURROW-MAKER  111 

vive,  and  I  say  that  furrow-maker  will  not 
die." 

"He  will  die,"  said  the  brown  one. 

"Caw,"  said  the  other. 

And  Man  said  in  his  heart:  "Just  one 
invention  more.  There  is  something  I  want 
to  do  with  petrol  yet,  and  then  I  will  give 
it  all  up  and  go  back  to  the  woods." 


LOBSTER    SALAD 

I  WAS  climbing  round  the  perilous  out- 
side of  the  Palace  of  Colquonhombros. 
So  far  below  me  that  in  the  tranquil  twilight 
and  clear  air  of  those  lands  I  could  only 
barely  see  them  lay  the  craggy  tops  of  the 
mountains. 

It  was  along  no  battlements  or  terrace 
edge  I  was  climbing,  but  on  the  sheer  face 
of  the  wall  itself,  getting  what  foothold  I 
could  where  the  boulders  joined. 

Had  my  feet  been  bare  I  was  done,  but 
though  I  was  in  my  night-shirt  I  had  on 
stout  leather  boots,  and  their  edges  some- 
how held  in  those  narrow  cracks.  My  fin- 
gers and  wrists  were  aching. 

Had  it  been  possible  to  stop  for  a  moment 
I  might  have  been  lured  to  give  a  second 
look  at  the  fearful  peaks  of  the  mountains 
112 


LOBSTER  SALAD  113 

down  there  in  the  twilight,  and  this  must 
have  been  fatal. 

That  the  thing  was  all  a  dream  is  beside 
the  point.  We  have  fallen  in  dreams  be- 
fore, but  it  is  well  known  that  if  in  one  of 
those  falls  you  ever  hit  the  ground — you  die : 
I  had  looked  at  those  menacing  mountain- 
tops  and  knew  well  that  such  a  fall  as  the 
one  I  feared  must  have  such  a  termination. 
Then  I  went  on. 

It  is  strange  what  different  sensations 
there  can  be  in  different  boulders — every  one 
gleaming  with  the  same  white  light  and 
every  one  chosen  to  match  the  rest  by  min- 
ions of  ancient  kings — when  your  life  de- 
pends on  the  edges  of  every  one  you  come  to. 
Those  edges  seemed  strangely  different.  It 
was  of  no  avail  to  overcome  the  terror  of 
one,  for  the  next  would  give  you  a  hold  in 
quite  a  different  way  or  hand  you  over  to 
death  in  a  different  manner.  Some  were 
too  sharp  to  hold  and  some  too  flush  with 
the  wall,  those  whose  hold  was  the  best  crum- 


114          FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

bled  the  soonest;  each  rock  had  its  different 
terror :  and  then  there  were  those  things  that 
followed  behind  me. 

And  at  last  I  came  to  a  breach  made  long 
ago  by  earthquake,  lightning  or  war:  I 
should  have  had  to  go  down  a  thousand  feet 
to  get  round  it  and  they  would  come  up  with 
me  while  I  was  doing  that,  for  certain  sable 
apes  that  I  have  not  mentioned  as  yet, 
things  that  had  tigerish  teeth  and  were  born 
and  bred  on  that  wall,  had  pursued  me  all 
the  evening.  In  any  case  I  could  have  gone 
no  farther,  nor  did  I  know  what  the  king 
would  do  along  whose  wall  I  was  climbing. 
It  was  time  to  drop  and  be  done  with  it  or 
stop  and  await  those  apes. 

And  then  it  was  that  I  remembered  a  pin, 
thrown  carelessly  down  out  of  an  evening- 
tie  in  another  world  to  the  one  where  grew 
that  glittering  wall,  and  lying  now  if  no 
evil  chance  had  removed  it  on  a  chest  of 
drawers  by  my  bed.  The  apes  were  very 
close,  and  hurrying,  for  they  knew  my 


LOBSTER  SALAD  115 

fingers  were  slipping,  and  the  cruel  peaks 
of  those  infernal  mountains  seemed  surer 
of  me  than  the  apes.  I  reached  out  with  a 
desperate  effort  of  will  towards  where  the 
pin  lay  on  the  chest  of  drawers.  I  groped 
about.  I  found  itl  I  ran-  it  into  my  arm. 
Saved! 


THE   RETURN  OF   THE   EXILES 

THE  old  man  with  a  hammer  and  the 
one-eyed  man  with  a  spear  were  seat- 
ed by  the  roadside  talking  as  I  came  up  the 
hill. 

"It  isn't  as  though  they  hadn't  asked  us," 
the  one  with  the  hammer  said. 

"There  ain't  no  more  than  twenty  as 
knows  about  it,"  said  the  other. 

"Twenty's  twenty,"  said  the  first. 

"After  all  these  years,"  said  the  one-eyed 
man  with  the  spear.  "After  all  these  years. 
We  might  go  back  just  once." 

"O'  course  we  might,"  said  the  other. 

Their  clothes  were  old  even  for  laborers, 
the  one  with  the  hammer  had  a  leather 
apron  full  of  holes  and  blackened,  and  their 
hands  looked  like  leather.  But  whatever 
they  were  they  were  English,  and  this  was 
116 


RETURN  OF  EXILES        117 
i 

pleasant  to  see  after  all  the  motors  that  had 
passed  me  that  day  with  their  burden  of 
mixed  and  doubtful  nationalities. 

When  they  saw  me  the  one  with  the  ham- 
mer touched  his  greasy  cap. 

"Might  we  make  so  bold,  sir,"  he  said, 
"as  to  ask  the  way  to  Stonehenge?" 

"We  never  ought  to  go,"  mumbled  the 
other  plaintively.  "There's  not  more  than 
twenty  as  knows,  but  ..." 

I  was  bicycling  there  myself  to  see  the 
place  so  I  pointed  out  the  way  and  rode  on 
at  once,  for  there  was  something  so  utterly 
servile  about  them  both  that  I  did  not  care 
for  their  company.  They  seemed  by  their 
wretched  mien  to  have  been  persecuted  or 
utterly  neglected  for  many  years,  I  thought 
that  very  likely  they  had  done  long  terms  of 
penal  servitude. 

When  I  came  to  Stonehenge  I  saw  a 
group  of  about  a  score  of  men  standing 
among  the  stones.  They  asked  me  with  some 
solemnity  if  I  was  expecting  anyone,  and 


118          FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

when  I  said  No  they  spoke  to  me  no  more. 
It  was  three  miles  back  where  I  left  those 
strange  old  men,  but  I  had  not  been  in  the 
stone  circle  long  when  they  appeared,  com- 
ing with  great  strides  along  the  road.  When 
they  saw  them  all  the  people  took  off  their 
hats  and  acted  very  strangely,  and  I  saw 
that  they  had  a  goat  which  they  led  up  then 
to  the  old  altar  stone.  And  the  two  old  men 
came  up  with  their  hammer  and  spear  and 
began  apologizing  plaintively  for  the  lib- 
erty they  had  taken  in  coming  back  to  that 
place,  and  all  the  people  knelt  on  the  grass 
before  them.  And  then  still  kneeling  they 
killed  the  goat  by  the  altar,  and  when  the 
two  old  men  saw  this  they  came  up  with 
many  excuses  and  eagerly  sniffed  the  blood. 
And  at  first  this  made  them  happy.  But 
soon  the  one  with  the  spear  began  to  whim- 
per. "It  used  to  be  men,"  he  lamented.  "It 
used  to  be  men." 

And  the  twenty  men  began  looking  un- 
easily at  each  other,  and  the  plaint  of  the 


RETURN  OF  EXILES        119 

one-eyed  man  went  on  in  that  tearful  voice, 
and  all  of  a  sudden  they  all  looked  at  me. 
I  do  not  know  who  the  two  old  men  were 
or  what  any  of  them  were  doing,  but  there 
are  moments  when  it  is  clearly  time  to  go, 
and  I  left  them  there  and  then.  And  just  as 
I  got  up  on  to  my  bicycle  I  heard  the  plain- 
tive voice  of  the  one  with  the  hammer  apolo- 
gizing for  the  liberty  he  had  taken  in  com- 
ing back  to  Stonehenge. 

"But  after  all  these  years,"  I  heard  him 
crying,  "After  all  these  years.  .  .  . " 

And  the  one  with  the  spear  said:  "Yes, 
after  three  thousand  years.  ..." 


NATURE   AND   TIME 

rpHROUGH  the  streets  of  Coventry  one 
-I*  winter's  night  strode  a  triumphant 
spirit.  Behind  him  stooping,  unkempt,  ut- 
terly ragged,  wearing  the  clothes  and  look 
that  outcasts  have,  whining,  weeping,  re- 
proaching, an  ill-used  spirit  tried  to  keep 
pace  with  him.  Continually  she  plucked  him 
by  the  sleeve  and  cried  out  to  him  as  she 
panted  after  and  he  strode  resolute  on. 

It  was  a  bitter  night,  yet  it  did  not  seem  to 
be  the  cold  that  she  feared,  ill-clad  though 
she  was,  but  the  trams  and  the  ugly  shops 
and  the  glare  of  the  factories,  from  which 
she  continually  winced  as  she  hobbled  on, 
and  the  pavement  hurt  her  feet. 

He  that  strode  on  in  front  seemed  to  care 
for  nothing,  it  might  be  hot  or  cold,  silent 
120 


NATURE  AND  TIME         121 

or  noisy,  pavement  or  open  fields,  he  merely 
had  the  air  of  striding  on. 

And  she  caught  up  and  clutched  him  by 
the  elbow.  I  heard  her  speak  in  her  un- 
happy voice,  you  scarcely  heard  it  for  the 
noise  of  the  traffic. 

"You  have  forgotten  me,"  she  complained 
to  him.  "You  have  forsaken  me  here." 

She  pointed  to  Coventry  with  a  wide  wave 
of  her  arm  and  seemed  to  indicate  other 
cities  beyond.  And  he  gruffly  told  her  to 
keep  pace  with  him  and  that  he  did  not 
forsake  her.  And  she  went  on  with  her  piti- 
ful lamentation. 

"My  anemones  are  dead  for  miles,"  she 
said,  "all  my  woods  are  fallen  and  still  the 
cities  grow.  My  child  Man  is  unhappy  and 
my  other  children  are  dying,  and  still  the 
cities  grow  and  you  have  forgotten  mel" 

And  then  he  turned  angrily  on  her,  al- 
most stopping  in  that  stride  of  his  that  be- 
gan when  the  stars  were  made. 

"When  have  I  ever  forgotten  you?"  he 


122          FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

said,  "or  when  forsaken  you  ever?  Did  I 
not  throw  down  Babylon  for  you?  And  is 
not  Nineveh  gone?  Where  is  Persepolis 
that  troubled  you?  Where  Tarshish  and 
Tyre?  And  you  have  said  I  forget  you." 

And  at  this  she  seemed  to  take  a  little 
comfort.  I  heard  her  speak  once  more,  look- 
ing wistfully  at  her  companion.  "When 
will  the  fields  come  back  and  the  grass  for 
my  children?" 

"Soon,  soon,"  he  said:  then  they  were 
silent.  And  he  strode  away,  she  limping 
along  behind  him,  and  all  the  clocks  in  the 
towers  chimed  as  he  passed. 


THE  SONG  OF  THE  BLACKBIRD 

AS  the  poet  passed  the  thorn-tree  the 
blackbird  sang. 

"How  ever  do  you  do  it?"  the  poet  said, 
for  he  knew  bird  language. 

"It  was  like  this,"  said  the  blackbird.  "It 
really  was  the  most  extraordinary  thing.  I 
made  that  song  last  Spring,  it  came  to  me 
all  of  a  sudden.  There  was  the  most  beauti- 
ful she-blackbird  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  Her  eyes  were  blacker  than  lakes  are 
at  night,  her  feathers  were  blacker  than  the 
night  itself,  and  nothing  was  as  yellow  as 
her  beak ;  she  could  fly  much  faster  than  the 
lightning.  She  was  not  an  ordinary  she- 
blackbird,  there  has  never  been  any  other 
like  her  at  all.  I  did  not  dare  go  near  her 
because  she  was  so  wonderful.  One  day  last 
Spring  when  it  got  warm  again — it  had  been 

123 


124          FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

cold,  we  ate  berries,  things  were  quite  differ- 
ent then,  but  Spring  came  and  it  got  warm 
— one  day  I  was  thinking  how  wonderful 
she  was  and  it  seemed  so  extraordinary  to 
think  that  I  should  ever  have  seen  her,  the 
only  really  wonderful  she-blackbird  in  the 
world,  that  I  opened  my  beak  to  give  a 
shout,  and  then  this  song  came,  and  there 
had  never  been  anything  like  it  before,  and 
luckily  I  remembered  it,  the  very  song  that 
I  just  sang  now.  But  what  is  so  extraordi- 
nary, the  most  amazing  occurrence  of  that 
marvellous  day,  was  that  no  sooner  had  I 
sung  the  song  than  that  very  bird,  the  most 
wonderful  she-blackbird  in  the  world,  flew 
right  up  to  me  and  sat  quite  close  to  me  on 
the  same  tree.  I  never  remember  such  won- 
derful times  as  those. 

"Yes,  the  song  came  in  a  moment,  and  as 
I  was  saying  ..." 

And  an  old  wanderer  walking  with  a  stick 
came  by  and  the  blackbird  flew  away,  and 


SONG  OF  BLACKBIRD       125 

the  poet  told  the  old  man  the  blackbird's 
wonderful  story. 

"That  song  new?"  said  the  wanderer. 
"Not  a  bit  of  it.  God  made  it  years  ago. 
All  the  blackbirds  used  to  sing  it  when  I 
was  young.  It  was  new  then." 


THE   MESSENGERS 

ONE  wandering  nigh  Parnassus  chas- 
ing hares  heard  the  high  Muses. 

"Take  us  a  message  to  the  Golden  Town." 

Thus  sang  the  Muses. 

But  the  man  said:  "They  do  not  call  to  me. 
Not  to  such  as  me  speak  the  Muses." 

And  the  Muses  called  him  by  name. 

"Take  us  a  message,"  they  said,  "to  the 
Golden  Town." 

And  the  man  was  downcast  for  he  would 
have  chased  hares. 

And  the  Muses  called  again. 

And  when  whether  in  valleys  or  on  high 
crags  of  the  hills  he  still  heard  the  Muses 
he  went  at  last  to  them  and  heard  their 
message,  though  he  would  fain  have  left  it 
to  other  men  and  chased  the  fleet  hares  still 
in  happy  valleys. 

126 


THE  MESSENGERS          127 

And  they  gave  him  a  wreath  of  laurels 
carved  out  of  emeralds  as  only  the  Muses 
can  carve.  "By  this,"  they  said,  "they 
shall  know  that  you  come  from  the  Muses." 

And  the  man  went  from  that  place  and 
dressed  in  scarlet  silks  as  befitted  one  that 
came  from  the  high  Muses.  And  through 
the  gateway  of  the  Golden  Town  he  ran 
and  cried  his  message,  and  his  cloak  floated 
behind  him.  All  silent  sat  the  wise  men 
and  the  aged,  they  of  the  Golden  Town; 
cross-legged  they  sat  before  their  houses 
reading  from  parchments  a  message  of  the 
Muses  that  they  sent  long  before. 

And  the  young  man  cried  his  message 
from  the  Muses. 

And  they  rose  up  and  said:  "Thou  art 
not  from  the  Muses.  Otherwise  spake  they." 
And  they  stoned  him  and  he  died. 

And  afterwards  they  carved  his  message 
upon  gold;  and  read  it  in  their  temples  on 
holy  days. 

When  will  the  Muses  rest?     When  are 


128          FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

they  weary?  They  sent  another  messenger 
to  the  Golden  Town.  And  they  gave  him 
a  wand  of  ivory  to  carry  in  his  hand  with 
all  the  beautiful  stories  of  the  world  won- 
drously  carved  thereon.  And  only  the 
Muses  could  have  carved  it.  "By  this,"  they 
said,  "they  shall  know  that  you  come  from 
the  Muses." 

And  he  came  through  the  gateway  of  the 
Golden  Town  with  the  message  he  had  for 
its  people.  And  they  rose  up  at  once  in  the 
Golden  street,  they  rose  from  reading  the 
message  that  they  had  carved  upon  gold. 
"The  last  who  came,"  they  said,  "came  with 
a  wreath  of  laurels  carved  out  of  emeralds, 
as  only  the  Muses  can  carve.  You  are  not 
from  the  Muses." 

And  even  as  they  had  stoned  the  last  so 
also  they  stoned  him.  And  afterwards  they 
carved  his  message  on  gold  and  laid  it  up 
in  their  temples. 

When  will  the  Muses  rest?  When  are 
they  weary  ?  Even  yet  once  again  they  sent 


THE  MESSENGERS          129 

a  messenger  under  the  gateway  into  the 
Golden  Town.  And  for  all  that  he  wore  a 
garland  of  gold  that  the  high  Muses  gave 
him,  a  garland  of  kingcups  soft  and  yellow 
on  his  head,  yet  fashioned  of  pure  gold  and 
by  whom  but  the  Muses,  yet  did  they  stone 
him  in  the  Golden  Town.  But  they  had  the 
message,  and  what  care  the  Muses? 

And  yet  they  will  not  rest,  for  some  while 
since  I  heard  them  call  to  me. 

"Go  take  our  message,"  they  said,  "unto 
the  Golden  Town." 

But  I  would  not  go.  And  they  spake  a 
second  time.  "Go  take  our  message,"  they 
said. 

And  still  I  would  not  go,  and  they  cried 
out  a  third  time:  "Go  take  our  message." 

And  though  they  cried  a  third  time  I 
would  not  go.  But  morning  and  night  they 
cried  and  through  long  evenings. 

When  will  the  Muses  rest?  When  are  they 
weary?  And  when  they  would  not  cease 


130          FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

to  call  to  me  I  went  to  them  and  I  said: 
"The  Golden  Town  is  the  Golden  Town  no 
longer.  They  have  sold  their  pillars  for 
brass  and  their  temples  for  money,  they  have 
made  coins  out  of  their  golden  doors.  It  is 
become  a  dark  town  full  of  trouble,  there  is 
no  ease  in  its  streets,  beauty  has  left  it  and 
the  old  songs  are  gone." 

"Go  take  our  message,"  they  cried. 

And  I  said  to  the  high  Muses:  "You 
do  not  understand.  You  have  no  message 
for  the  Golden  Town,  the  holy  city  no 
longer." 

"Go  take  our  message,"  they  cried. 

"What  is  your  message?"  I  said  to  the 
high  Muses. 

And  when  I  heard  their  message  I  made 
excuses,  dreading  to  speak  such  things  in 
the  Golden  Town;  and  again  they  bade  me 
go. 

And  I  said:  "I  will  not  go.  None  will 
believe  me." 


THE  MESSENGERS          131 

And  still  the  Muses  cry  to  me  all  night 
long. 

They  do  not  understand.  How  should 
they  know? 


THE    THREE    TALL    SONS 

AND   at  last  Man  raised  on  high  the 
final   glory    of   his    civilization,   the 
towering  edifice  of  the  ultimate  city. 

Softly  beneath  him  in  the  deeps  of  the 
earth  purred  his  machinery  fulfilling  all  his 
needs,  there  was  no  more  toil  for  man. 
There  he  sat  at  ease  discussing  the  Sex 
Problem. 

And  sometimes  painfully  out  of  forgot- 
ten fields,  there  came  to  his  outer  door,  came 
to  the  furthest  rampart  of  the  final  glory 
of  Man,  a  poor  old  woman  begging.  And 
always  they  turned  her  away.  This  glory 
of  Man's  achievement,  this  city  was  not  for 
her. 

It  was  Nature  that  thus  came  begging  in 
from  the  fields,  whom  they  always  turned 
away. 

132 


THE  THREE  TALL  SONS    133 

And  away  she  went  again  alone  to  her 
fields. 

And  one  day  she  came  again,  and  again 
they  sent  her  hence.  But  her  three  tall  sons 
came  too. 

"These  shall  go  in,"  she  said.  "Even 
these  my  sons  to  your  city." 

And  the  three  tall  sons  went  in. 

And  these  are  Nature's  sons,  the  forlorn 
one's  terrible  children,  War,  Famine  and 
Plague. 

Yea  and  they  went  in  there  and  found 
Man  unawares  in  his  city  still  poring  over 
his  Problems,  obsessed  with  his  civilization, 
and  never  hearing  their  tread  as  those  three 
came  up  behind. 


COMPROMISE 

THEY  built  their  gorgeous  home,  their 
city  of  glory,  above  the  lair  of  the 
earthquake.  They  built  it  of  marble  and 
gold  in  the  shining  youth  of  the  world. 
There  they  feasted  and  fought  and  called 
their  city  immortal,  and  danced  and  sang 
songs  to  the  gods.  None  heeded  the  earth- 
quake in  all  those  joyous  streets.  And  down 
in  the  deeps  of  the  earth,  on  the  black  feet 
of  the  abyss,  they  that  would  conquer  Man 
mumbled  long  in  the  darkness,  mumbled 
and  goaded  the  earthquake  to  try  his 
strength  with  that  city,  to  go  forth  blithely 
at  night  and  to  gnaw  its  pillars  like  bones. 
And  down  in  those  grimy  deeps  the  earth- 
quake answered  them,  and  would  not  do 
their  pleasure  and  would  not  stir  from 
thence,  for  who  knew  who  they  were  who 
danced  all  day  where  he  rumbled,  and  what 
134 


COMPROMISE  135 

if  the  lords  of  that  city  that  had  no  fear  of 
his  anger  were  haply  even  the  gods ! 

And  the  centuries  plodded  by,  on  and  on 
round  the  world,  and  one  day  they  that  had 
danced,  they  that  had  sung  in  that  city, 
remembered  the  lair  of  the  earthquake  in 
the  deeps  down  under  their  feet,  and  made 
plans  one  with  another  and  sought  to  avert 
the  danger,  sought  to  appease  the  earth- 
quake and  turn  his  anger  away. 

They  sent  down  singing  girls,  and  priests 
with  oats  and  wine,  they  sent  down  gar- 
lands and  propitious  berries,  down  by  dark 
steps  to  the  black  depths  of  the  earth,  they 
sent  peacocks  newly  slain,  and  boys  with 
burning  spices,  and  their  thin  white  sacred 
cats  with  collars  of  pearls  all  newly  drawn 
from  sea,  they  sent  huge  diamonds  down 
in  coffers  of  teak,  and  ointment  and  strange 
oriental  dyes,  arrows  and  armor  and  the 
rings  of  their  queen. 

"Oho,"  said  the  earthquake  in  the  coolth 
of  the  earth,  "so  they  are  not  the  gods." 


WHAT  WE   HAVE    COME    TO 

WHEN  the  advertiser  saw  the  cathe- 
dral spires  over  the  downs  in  the 
distance,  he  looked  at  them  and  wept. 

"If  only,"  he  said,  "this  were  an  adver- 
tisement of  Beef  o,  so  nice,  so  nutritious,  try 
it  in  your  soup,  ladies  like  it." 


186 


THE    TOMB    OF   PAN 

SEEING,"  they  said,  "that  old-time  Pan 
is  dead,  let  us  now  make  a  tomb  for  him 
and  a  monument,  that  the  dreadful  worship 
of  long  ago  may  be  remembered  and  avoided 
by  all." 

So  said  the  people  of  the  enlightened 
lands.  And  they  built  a  white  and  mighty 
tomb  of  marble.  Slowly  it  rose  under  the 
hands  of  the  builders  and  longer  every  even- 
ing after  sunset  it  gleaned  with  rays  of  the 
departed  sun. 

And  many  mourned  for  Pan  while  the 
builders  built;  many  reviled  him.  Some 
called  the  builders  to  cease  and  to  weep  for 
Pan  and  others  called  them  to  leave  no  me- 
morial at  all  of  so  infamous  a  god.  But  the 
builders  built  on  steadily. 

And  one  day  all  was  finished,  and  the 
137 


138          FIFTY-ONE  TALES 

tomb  stood  there  like  a  steep  sea-cliff.  And 
Pan  was  carved  thereon  with  humbled  head 
and  the  feet  of  angels  pressed  upon  his 
neck.  And  when  the  tomb  was  finished  the 
sun  had  already  set,  but  the  afterglow  was 
rosy  on  the  huge  bulk  of  Pan. 

And  presently  all  the  enlightened  people 
came,  and  saw  the  tomb  and  remembered 
Pan  who  was  dead,  and  all  deplored  him  and 
his  wicked  age.  But  a  few  wept  apart  be- 
cause of  the  death  of  Pan. 

But  at  evening  as  he  stole  out  of  the  for- 
est, and  slipped  like  a  shadow  softly  along 
the  hills,  Pan  saw  the  tomb  and  laughed. 


A    000  032  997    9 


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